Scott Brown takes us on a journey from eternity past through Revelation of the contours of a Biblical Theology of the family. You will see how God is faithful. You will see the only hope for the family.
Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 7 and find verse 9. What a joy it is to open the inerrant, the all-sufficient, the holy, sweeter-than-honey word of truth. We need it. Deuteronomy 7 verse 9 Therefore Know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Would you pray with me?
Lord, your mercy is new every morning as you keep your covenant. We are so thankful for mercy and the testimony across the ages of your mercy, your covenant keeping love, your kindness towards sinners. Lord we pray that you would help us to see all the beauties of your kingdom as we pass these pages through the preaching. In Jesus' name, amen. This passage picks up a theme that runs throughout the Word of God.
God is a covenant keeping God. His plan will not fail. It's a covenant of love. It's a covenant of mercy. And as we consider this theology of the family, what you will see is the work of the love of God from eternity past all the way into eternity in the future and you'll see the beauties of God that's what I pray that you'll see you'll see how kind he is how powerful he is how good he is the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell. You'll see that in this testimony that we're beginning here. I want to talk about the methodology of this conference. It's an unusual methodology. We're here to do something that is unusual.
It's called a biblical theology and of course it's a biblical theology of the family. Now what is a biblical theology? Well when you do a biblical theology you're painting a picture across thousands of years and you see the the power of the gospel flowing all throughout redemptive history. It's something that shows us glory across the generations and it shows us the heaven-leaning intentions of God in the purposes of the family. And one of the valuable aspects of doing a biblical theology of the family in contrast to a systematic theology is that you see behind the curtain.
You see the intentions of God. You see the reasons. You see the design. You see the schemes that God has used to redeem fallen humanity. You see how kind he is.
In a systematic theology of the family, you see different things. You see categories. You see what husbands do, what wives do, what children do. You see the duties of the family. You go to didactic texts and you unpack the various commands, the principles, the statutes of the Lord that are given to families.
Frankly, and every one of the preachers here in this conference knows this better than most, a systematic theology is a lot easier to do than a biblical theology. It's easier to zero in on a text and hang there, but that's not what we've done primarily with these preachers here. In a biblical theology you examine eras of biblical history. You step back and you see the flow of the love of God. It's so beautiful.
I pray that you'll see the beauty of the love of God. He is so good. In a biblical theology, you're actually forced to think across the whole counsel of God and what you see are the connections that begin in heaven and then they proceed on throughout the various eras of biblical history and what you find is as you go through this biblical theology as it progresses through the ages is that everything is connected and you realize no man could have written this book. It would be impossible for such a thing to happen. God strings along his beauty all throughout redemptive history and You see the meaning of the generations that tole a doth across the landscape of scripture from Genesis to Revelation.
I hope that you will have a wonderful look behind the curtain of the kind intentions of God and how He's moving. I also hope you see your own life along the timeline of this biblical theology of the family. You know, here we are in 2021, but I'll tell you right up front, you're going to find your life. You're going to find your family's life to appear not just along the timeline in 2021. You are going to see an eternal plan to redeem you.
If you love God, something happened a long time ago and you love him now. And your life right now is connected to something far greater than now. We often get so obsessed with now, but there's a much bigger picture than I and we will be able to see it. Now, systematic theology shows you what to do. A biblical theology shows you what God is doing.
When you do a biblical theology, you see the shadows come to life and you see them being introduced and then they are repeated and God is looping back and forth. You know, Lewis Galson in his book, God Breathed, he talks about the Bible and redemptive history and the various writers in history as a gigantic piano and he speaks of the writers going back and forth across the piano and he plays a key at the beginning but then it comes again he's he's going back and forth this is what a biblical theology does to you it makes you think about the whole sweep of scripture it gives you a bigger and better picture of the whole counsel of God you don't just see the micro you see the macro picture of the glory of God you'll also see that's great war of the devil You don't see airbrushed families in the Bible. As we move through this historical record, you'll see broken families. You'll see broken families just like your broken family. Some of them are so severely broken, You look at them and you say, oh my, I'm glad my family's not like that.
But the truth is, you will see that these broken families are used to preserve a covenant. To preserve a covenantal line of the Messiah in order to create the most beloved family, the most cared for family, the most happy family, the everlasting family of God riding on the tails of an everlasting covenant, you will see God create beauty from ashes over and over and over again. I hope, I hope such a biblical theology of the family will make you less discouraged about your family, to see what's happening, what God is doing. And we're here really to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture. That's what we always try to do in these conferences And you will also see these preachers defend very particular doctrines, and we're here to defend various doctrines.
As you defend the doctrine of the family, you find that you're protecting many, many doctrines. And I'm just urgently concerned that all of us, that all the pastors that are here in the local churches are set to defend the doctrines of the word of God. Lifestyles always hang on doctrines. And all of our conferences have focused on defending these various doctrines. If you've been here to our national conferences, you know that we have tried to explain the doctrine of the church, the doctrine of repentance, the doctrine of the fear of God, the doctrine of the Great Commission, the doctrine of holiness, the doctrine of repentance, the power of the gospel, the worship of God.
And in these conferences we try to actually create a testimony, a fairly full testimony, that is really according to a design of the doctrine to leave for people who want to understand that doctrine. And so the preachers that preach here, we hope that people listen to these messages. And so you'll hear us defend the doctrine of the family. But what you'll find as we do that is that we're actually defending some of the most viciously attacked doctrines in our day. We'll be defending the doctrine of the creation order.
We'll be defending the doctrines of manhood and womanhood. We'll be defending the doctrine of sin and its transmission across the generations. We'll be defending the gospel of Jesus Christ and His grace. You'll be defending the covenant of God. It's an everlasting covenant.
You will find these preachers defending many doctrines. That's what happens when you do a biblical theology. You find yourself all over the map and you will and I hope it's very very helpful but God he is faithful the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Why would we do such a thing to have a biblical theology? Why would we force our speakers into such a difficult vice as they try to unpack these eras of history.
There are many reasons. One reason is that the devil has the family in its cross hairs. The devil always works with strategic targets. If you wanna take out a city, You destroy the supply lines. You destroy the power grid.
You take out the bridges. You shut down the communication systems. This is what the devil is doing. He's taking down the communication systems of the family. He's taking down the energy sources of the communication of the gospel from one generation to the next.
You know from the very beginning you'll see this you'll see it tonight you'll see how the devil loathes marriage. He loathes husbands and wives. He absolutely hates children and the first thing that he does with children is he gets them to hate one another so much that one of them kills the other. The devil hates the family. He hates the family for a reason.
He's working with strategic targets here and frankly I'm sure you feel the same. There's never been a time in your lifetime when the church and the family have been so attacked on the level of these doctrines. These doctrines and purposes and duties of the family have never been attacked, have never been so contradicted, have never been so overthrown by this culture, by the entertainment industrial complex, by big tech, by the government, even by church leaders and your neighbors. There's an overthrow of the creation order and Tom Askell is coming up here soon to walk us through that whole thing. We're living in very dangerous times.
It's a very pivotal moment in the history of our nation and we need to strengthen the things that remain. We're here to drive a stake in the ground. We're here to encourage one another to cleave to an all-sufficient word of truth. And we're here to say that there is a very clear purpose for the family and those who have families ought to preserve the doctrine and the practice that is laid out in the Word of God. So it should be no surprise that the devil is attacking the family.
I'm gonna give you four very quick reasons the devil is attacking the family and why it's such a strategic target. First of all, the family is a strategic target because it's a microcosm of the church. The Puritans called the family a little church and the church is the family of God. It's God's household. The second reason it's such a strategic target is the family is the smallest unit of society in the foundation of the culture.
It's the molecular, it's the cellular unit of society. I mean, here's a reality. Everything that happens in the world comes from a relationship between a man and a woman. Everything. This is why the devil hates the family.
The third reason the family is a strategic target is that the family is a school for the instruction of the rising generation where fathers are called to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up. The devil hates that. He hates it every time you do it. The family is a strategic target even more than all of these because the family is a picture of the Gospel and the devil hates the Gospel and that's why he hates the family. He hates the gospel so much that he wants to obliterate the husband as head of the wife, as Christ as head of the church.
He hates the family so much that when a wife submits to her husband, he rages against it because A wife is a picture of a glorious, honorable church. He hates children because children are called to honor their father and mother in the same way that all disciples are called to honor their God and to obey their God. The devil hates the family and so your family is in the crosshairs of the devil right now. He always, and it always has been. Don't let him take you out.
You know this week the world became aware of the war in the Middle East and these reports about Israel's iron shield. This missile system, this computerized missile system that apparently shoots down at 90% of the rockets coming in to bomb Israel. They're shot in the air. Maybe you've seen some of the videos, it's amazing. Hundreds of rockets coming over, boom, boom, boom.
It's like a video game. I hope your family is like that, like an iron shield against the wiles of the devil. You know upholding the doctrine of the family is very dangerous in our times and the encroachments are astounding You may not be able to have control over your medical choices. You may not be able to keep your job. You may not be able to homeschool your children.
You may not be able to buy or sell if you uphold the doctrine of the family. Those are just realities. Some of you might end up in prison. I pray none of that happens. I hope we're a long way from that, but we might not be.
We've seen things move so fast. And I just wanna encourage all of us here to continue in the doctrine, to uphold the doctrine, to be faithful, to apply the things that God has said. And I really, I want to, with this conference, infuse biblical hope for your family. Not sentimental hope, not a false hope, but the hope that the Bible gives, and the hope that the Bible gives is an everlasting covenant. The power of the gospel in your family is the only hope for your family.
So this is such an important matter. I hope that when all is said and done, when you walk off this mountain, that you are thrilled with God, that you are so thankful to see yourself in the timeline of the biblical theology of the family. I hope that you exit with such great admiration for God and increased love for God and A delight soaring in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I want you to leave this property with a bulldogmatic devotion to God. I had to say bulldogmatic because Steve Lawson's in here this year.
But I pray that you will have such resolve as you leave this mountain. Now I want to explain the flow of this conference and the contours of it. I'm going to give you a quick overview here of the conference. We're beginning the journey in eternity past and then we move on to creation and on from there. We're going to begin right now in eternity past.
There are many passages of scripture that we could appeal to but in eternity past the Father and the Son conspired a redemptive plan. They planned for the redemption of sinners in eternity past. This is the beginning of the gospel really is in eternity past. In Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 through 6 the Apostle Paul tells the Ephesian Church he says blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of His grace. That's why God created your family, for the praise of the glory of His grace.
In John 1, 1, The Gospel of John begins with the fact that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Here God is with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 John 4, 9 God sent his only begotten son into the world. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.
In Galatians chapter 4 we learn that there is a strategic time in the mind of God, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. His Son, God sent His Son not only to redeem but also to propitiate His wrath towards sinners. In 1st John 4-8 we learn this, He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. All of this happened in eternity past. This conspiracy of love between the Father and the Son.
He came to do the will of his Father the Lord Jesus Christ did he it's recorded in Psalm 40 verse 7 then I said behold I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me I delight to do your will oh my God and your law is written within my heart in other words the Son was sent into the world to execute God's purpose and He was so delighted to do it. In Proverbs chapter 8 verse 30 we find this remarkable testimony, this remarkable picture of the Father and the Son relating together in heaven. Proverbs 8, 30, then I was beside Him as a master craftsman and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men." Jonathan Edwards refers to these verses in Proverbs 8 as the Father and the Son, I'll quote him, contriving the wonderful work of redemption, which was contrived by the wisdom of God and was determined, agreed upon and accomplished wholly in and through the person who is the wisdom of God. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation 13 8 we learn that he was slain before the foundation of the world.
This is a scheme, this is a conspiracy in eternity past to save sinners. In John 17, verse four, we learn that the Lord Jesus Christ was sent from heaven to do a work to do, and then the Lord Jesus Christ in his prayer, he says, I have finished the work which you have given me to do." And then he says, "...and now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was." God the Father and God the Son were conspiring to love and rescue sinners and the Lord Jesus Christ after this conspiracy. The book of Hebrews says he passed through the heavens and he came to earth and then he passed back through the heavens and returned to his father. What does all this mean? It means that the Father and the Son entered into an irrevocable pact, a covenant, a deal.
They cut a deal for the salvation of sinners to make a family out of all the families of the earth. Charles Hodge in his systematic theology, he explains that the Father gave the Son work to do and He sent the Son into the world to do that work and he gives eight elements of this pact and I'll just read them very quickly. Number one, God would prepare for him a body like Adam but without spot or blemish. These are promises from the Father to the Son. Number two, that he would give him the Spirit without measure, adorned with the beauty of holiness.
Number three, that he would be at his right hand to support and comfort him in his darkest hours. Number four, that he would deliver him from the power of death and exalt him to his own right hand. Five, that he would be the head of the church. Sixth, he promised that all who are given to the Father would come to him. Seven, He promised that a multitude that no one could number would be redeemed from all the nations of the earth.
8. He promised that Christ would see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. If you go to Hodges, Systematic Theology, you'll recognize I was paraphrasing his eight points. But here's the reality. God sent his son, promising him a reward, and he did get his reward.
And so having just briefly here dealt with this conspiracy of love in heaven between the Father and the Son. We now proceed into the history of the world and I'll just give you a very brief flyover of this history. It begins with the creation of the family, man as male and female. This is the design that we must return to. Then we enter into the era of the fall through the days of Noah.
Every family problem originates right here. You cannot understand what's going on in your family or anybody else's family without understanding the fall. We turn to the family in Job in the early patriarchal period. We move on to the family in the heart of the patriarchal period which spans from Genesis 11 to chapter 23. It's almost 2, 000 years of history.
God makes a covenant with Abraham that all the families of the earth should be blessed. The family in the Mosaic period will be handled, this covers the Pentateuch, it's a massive section. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Almost every page of the Pentateuch has something to do with family life. It's absolutely astounding.
We will find ourselves in the era of Joshua and the judges highlighted in Joshua 24 moving on to that terrible period of the judges where every man and woman is doing what's right in his own eyes. A tragic time. You have the family in the Kingdom era from Samuel to David. You have the family in the Wisdom literature, the Psalms and the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. There's this massive compendium of the doctrine of the family in that era.
You have the family according to the pre-exilic prophets. You have the family and the Gospels. You know, you see it begins with a genealogy. It begins with this covenant being kept, the Lord Jesus Christ, over and over again. When he speaks about the family, he's quoting Deuteronomy.
When he talks about adultery, he talks about Deuteronomy. He's constantly quoting the Pentateuch and you find the Lord Jesus Christ constantly in the presence of broken families, demonized sons with parents who are just broken with the work of the devil, little girls demonized and they're at the feet of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus is always dealing with some of the most horrific family problems you can imagine. Of course he loved the little children as we all know. We will advance to the family and the letters to the churches and we will find ourselves landing in the book of Revelation, particularly in Revelation 20 and 21 where you'll find so many of the types, so many of the images fulfilled in heaven.
The Bible begins with a wedding, it ends with a wedding, it begins in a garden, it ends in a garden, It begins with trees and it ends with trees. It begins with fruit and it ends with fruit. It begins with the river. It ends with a river of life flowing out of the throne of God and the trees are bearing fruit every month. It's astounding.
It's so beautiful. It's such a beautiful picture. Dennis Johnson commenting on this section in Scripture. Likewise in the new heaven and earth, which God creates as a home for his bride. The first things have passed away, and these first things are the woes that infected the first created order through whom human sin.
Death, mourning, crying, and pain. And in that day he wipes all of the tears that have ever been shed for sin in families. What a picture. And so God created the family to display His covenant keeping love And he created the family to be a picture of his glorious church with brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. What a blessing it is.
God is faithful. He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Are you ready for the journey? Tom Askell is going to come and bring us into the earthly beginning of this picture, this glorious picture of the love of God. Tom, please come.