In this video, Josh Buice preaches from Genesis 12. The covenant God made with Abraham matters. Covenants are found throughout the Old Testament. They can be both conditional and unconditional. The one God made with Abraham was an unconditional one -- God initiates it and promises to uphold it.

There were promises that God made between Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We see the work of God and the promises of God fulfilled over time. He is a gracious and faithful God and showers us with blessings even we are most undeserving.

Genesis 12:2-4 (NKJV) - "I will make you a great nation;I will bless youAnd make your name great;And you shall be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you,And I will curse him who curses you;And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Turn with me to Psalm 128. Psalm 128, I was going to read 37 and 128. And I was going to preach on trust in the Lord, delight thyself in the Lord, commit thy way into the Lord, and rest in the Lord. That's just been done. So I have no excuse for going overtime tonight.

We'll be looking at Psalm 128. God's providence is amazing. Psalm 128. Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. Thy children, like olive plants, round about thy table. Behold that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children in peace upon Israel.

Let's pray. Almighty, covenant-keeping, family God, who art a family within thyself, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we beseech of thee. Help us in expressing what it means to belong to a God-fearing earthly family that reflects the fear of the living God from this glorious family Psalm. Be with us now and grant us God-fearing families who would worship thee through the Messiah and to thy glory by thy Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we're marching on in the scriptures and the book of Psalms contains 39 Psalms, according to my reckoning, that speak of God's heart for families in a variety of ways. The Psalms are songs of thanksgiving, of lament, of praise, of confidence, and of kingship that invite us into the blessed life of law and gospel-shaped happiness in covenant with God and in hope of his coming kingdom. We learn from the Psalms that God's heart speaks to his people, speaks to his chosen family as a place of refuge, a place of instruction, and that his heart flourishes for his covenant people as they hope in him. We also learn that the blessing of family is not automatic. We are to respond with responsibilities that are ours of wise, intentional instruction of our children by words and by our own example, but all in consistency with the character of God, the ways of God, and the worship of God in and through the Messiah.

So in this talk about the family in the Psalms, I want to focus on three things. First, God's heart for the family. Second, God's vision for the family. I'll be brief on those two. And then thirdly, I want to look at Psalm 128 at God's recipe for the family.

God's heart, God's vision. We'll look at those two thoughts more generally, looking at Psalms as a whole, and then God's recipe for the family to have true happiness in him from Psalm 128. So first thing, God's heart. The Psalms give us a vision of God's heart, a big heart for strong, God-fearing families. We owe everything, actually, everything we enjoy about family to God as the source, the maker, and the sustainer of our families.

God creates and sustains our children, Psalm 102 says, and Psalm 45 says. God's gift of life is intimate. He knits together each one of us in our mother's womb. As a woman might knit a shawl, so God knits a child, Psalm 139 says, in the womb of a mother. Our stories do not begin with our birth, but begin with God as our support, even from before birth, says David in Psalm 71, verse six.

So becoming a parent, the Psalms teach us, is not merely something predictably biological, but something from God's heart, something divinely bestowed. Children are a heritage of the Lord, Psalm 127. The fruit of the womb is his reward. His arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Every child, the Psalms would tell us, is a gift of almighty God, and to be treated with great respect and reverence as a creature created in the image of God.

Now that means a great deal. That means, first of all, that we have no right, of course, to murder the baby in the womb. America has the blood of more than 60 million babies, almost double the population of the entire nation of Canada on its hand since infamous Roe versus Wade in 1973. God can take vengeance upon this nation and destroy us just for that sin alone if he acts in justice according to his sovereign will. And we would have nothing to say.

In fact, the Psalms sense this kind of outrage when Psalm 106 reports that God's covenant people sacrificed, verse 37 and 38, their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their own sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And the land, the Psalm says, was polluted with blood. America's land is polluted with blood. But also, what this means is not only that we may not destroy the child in the womb, but that we ought not speak flippantly about having children. So many today, even Christians, will say things like this, well, I think I'd like four children.

The husband says, well, I think I'd like six. Well, maybe we'll settle for five. It's not your choice. The Puritans would roll over in their graves if they heard us talk like that. You see, a child is a gift of God, Psalm 127 says.

It's not for us to be lord of our family size in the first place. He is to be lord of our entire lives. We just published a book, by the way, called Sweeter by the Dozen. And the whole idea of the book is to demolish the idea that we're in control of our family size and that we surrender every other area of our life to the Lord, but not this one. You see, God opens the womb.

God gives the gift of children. Children are a heritage of the Lord. We need to learn from the Puritans here. The average Puritan family, by the way, had nine children. But what they would do is they would have, if they got open the womb, they would have a child.

The man would wait a certain space of time until he saw his wife had regained her strength, and he would say, my dear, how do you feel psychologically, spiritually, physically, emotionally? Do you feel like you could sustain another pregnancy? If the Lord would open the womb again, they would then in due time have another baby if God would open the womb. If God would open the womb. That's the theology of the birth of children in the Psalms.

And you see a large family in the fear of God, as we're going to hear in a moment, is a gift of God. It's a beautiful gift of God. Have a brother with 13 children, 57 grandchildren. He's 74 years old. It's a God-fearing family.

It's just a beautiful thing to behold. My mother was 92 when she died. She had 92 great-grandchildren when she died. And she was an only child. But it was a beautiful gift of God.

And when I see the prayers of my parents, my father and my mother, laid up in heavenly treasures for us children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and when I hear my dad still talking to me, even though he's been gone for 25 years, We're not going to leave you much money, son, because we don't have much, but we're gonna lay at the throne of grace something much more valuable. Prayers laid away as your inheritance. And I see grandchildren, and the great grandchildren, my parents being saved, I think back to the beauty and the glory of God opening the womb and giving the fear of God in the family from generation to generation. What a precious thing this is. But when the family, a large family, small family, when it is untethered from the fear of God, untethered from the covenant of God, untethered from the purposes of God, leading ultimately to ever-worsening levels of idolatry, even at the expense of the innocent blood of our own children, as we see in America today.

We need to grieve and mourn and lament as the Psalmist do. At the curse of God upon our land, we deserve destruction. We turn God's blessings into curses when we don't fear him. We repurpose what should bring God honor into a means of sin, and we drive ourselves deeper under God's judgment and God's sentences clear that we just heard from Psalm 38. The seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

So God's heart is a big heart to family in the Psalms. But in a sinful world, family often fails. But even when family fails, we see God's heart here as well. The Psalms are full of it. Psalm 68, We see the needy, the lonely, the vulnerable person who yearns for connection, who yearns for family.

And God says, I'll set the solitary, the lonely, in a family. God speaks of the barren woman, that he will cause her to rejoice and to have children. He gives a barren woman a home and makes her a joyful mother of children. Psalm 113. Where fallen humanity has failed and fractured its families, or where the burden of childlessness afflicts the family, God emerges as the Father par excellence who has a special concern for those who are hurt in various ways that families often go wrong through sin.

What a mercy that God has a heart for family. God has a heart for children. Not so long ago, my wife and I were praying for taking an hour of prayer in front of an abortion clinic in Grand Rapids, our only abortion clinic, but one is too many. As we were praying there, a woman pulled in and She stopped her van and she jumped out and she came to us. You could see it on her face, she was angry.

She said, you Christians are so self-righteous. She said, I came to this abortion clinic a few weeks ago and had an abortion, and why are you standing here trying to make me feel guilty? If I hadn't had that, I would have ruined my whole career, she said. Well, we talked to her for quite a while. Basically, I tried to calm her down and just say, we just have a very different view of children.

Perhaps you don't understand us Christians very well, but we believe that every child is a gift of God. Every child is made in the image of God. And she started to listen. And then my wife chimed in and she said, you know, we have a son who would love to have a child. He and his wife would give anything to have had your child.

They've been trying to have a child for years now. Now since then God did open the womb wonderfully, praise God. But the woman was thrown back for a moment and she said, you know I never thought of it that way. Thanks for telling me that. And she said, I understand you differently now.

And she got in her van and she drove away and she waved at us. And it was quite remarkable. But you see, The world can't even think along these lines. But part of the reason is that we have not been effective, myself included, in conveying to the world that every child is a gift of God, that God has a heart for family. And that if they really can handle a child, that there are God-fearing parents or would-be parents that are waiting in the wings to receive their child.

Now that's the good news. God has a heart for family in his son. Because God himself, as I mentioned in prayer, really is family within himself, isn't he? Without any inferiority or superiority. Father, son, spirit.

God has a family heart, a we heart, three in one heart in himself, which separates Christianity from every other religion in the world. Wish I had time to develop with you, but I don't. Let's move on to point two. God's vision for children and future generations. God not only has a heart for family, he's got a vision for family.

He has a plan, a divine plan, a divine vision, a divine covenantal framework for family that touches children and many future generations. He says in Psalm 144 that he will make our sons like plants and our daughters like pillars and he will prosper them, not for their sake, but so that they could be a blessing to others, Psalm 37, and so that all generations will remember him and the people will praise him, Psalm 45. Now we rarely think past our own generations. Two or three or at the most if we're very elderly, four. But the Psalms express a multi-generational, thousand-generational, covenantal framework and hope for our families to be ruled by the truth, the love, and the faithfulness of God.

Psalm 119, Psalm 145, Psalm 146. And this multi-generational family, blessing for families, is not automatically applied, but it takes generation by generation, day by day, instructional, intentional instructional fear of the Lord. But the mercy of the Lord is upon them that fear Him and His righteousness unto children's children, even to a thousand generations. The Psalms picture this instruction, in the fear of the Lord as spoken by the mouth and modeled by the life. Spoken by the mouth, Psalm 34, Psalm 78, and modeled by the life, Psalm 90.

And therefore it is incumbent upon us as we enter into covenant with God, with our families, that we tell our children, Psalm 78 says, the history of God's mighty works. His mighty works in Bible history, his mighty works in church history, his mighty works in our own lives as parents or as grandparents. We need to report of God's faithfulness in our own lives and then we need to model that faithfulness in our lives, and say we will not hide these things from our children or from the generation to come, the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. Psalm 78. Fathers, are you doing that?

Mothers, are you doing that? You know, my father, he was outstanding in this way. He talked to us all the time about the Bible, about church history. He'd press us to be reading books that would support the scriptures, God-fearing books, day in, day out. It's been with me ever since.

My dad would always be talking to us also about his personal life. We heard about his struggles with sin. We heard about how he came under conviction, how he was led to deliverance in Christ. He'd take Pilate's Progress every Sunday night and read it to us and instruct us. We'd sit literally at his feet.

We'd ask him questions. He'd set the book down, and with tears, he'd teach us the things of God, how the Holy Spirit worked in the soul. I thought all dads did that when I grew up. When I became a minister, I found out it's not that way. But that's what we're called to do.

We're to respond to His covenant mercies if we're born again believers with covenantal instruction of our children and to model it for them, to live it. You know my dad could have cared a lot more about our bodies I suppose. I sometimes wondered if he cared about the little things of everyday life at all. All I knew was that he loved my soul. Oh, my mother cared for our physical needs.

We knew that she loved us across the board. But my dad? I wasn't too sure. But I knew this much. I knew what J.C.

Ryle said. The soul of love, or the love of the soul rather, is the soul of all love. My dad had that. If someone would have asked me when I was a boy, what do you think of your dad? I probably would have said, well, my dad has his faults and flaws, but one thing I know, he loves Jesus and he loves my soul.

And you see, that comes out of a heart that has been won by the covenantal grace of God and wants that covenant to go on for a thousand generations. In our prayers, in our parenting, you see, we should foster goals and priorities based on a far-sighted view of what kind of adults we want our children to be. For God remembers His covenant and He remains His people's refuge for a thousand generations. Psalm 105, Psalm 90. We are to pray that the next generation will see God's work and might and blessing, Psalm 48, and that even when we are old and gray-headed, we can continue to show God's strength unto this generation and his power to everyone that is to come, Psalm 71.

I say all the time to my theological students, my goal, my passion, my prayer for you is that you will be far more godly than I am and that you will be far greater minister than I am. That you, you and your peers will advance way beyond this generation. That God would revive us and send repentance and reformation and renewal and spare this nation and raise up a God-fearing ministry across this land, and that the gospel would go forth in triumph once again, that we would have a greater awakening than the great awakening, and that millions may come to know the Lord in truth, even from sea to sea, because he's a faithful covenant-keeping God, and he's worthy of it. Oh, that we would pray for our precious, precious children. Some of you, one couple I talked to today, have the burden of having rebellious children who've abandoned, who've abandoned the way.

And They asked me today, that couple, do you have any advice? And I just stood speechless. But I did tell them this one story about my dad. We had one point when one of our siblings ran away from home, 17 years old. My parents didn't know where she was.

They were distraught, I saw their tears, I heard their cries. We were all weeping for my sister. But then the day came, after a few weeks, when my dad was driving by the church and on the spur of a moment, he took out his key, went into the church, and he came to the very spot where she was baptized. And he fell on his face and he cried out to this great God of the covenant, the God that's a heart for families, the God that is a heart for his own covenant, that God would take this child and penetrate her heart with his covenant mercies. That she would be born again and come back home.

And he got back home And he walked in the door and my mother said, our daughter just called and she's coming home. My dad said, when did she call? It was at the exact moment, literally the exact moment when he was there pleading that this baptized young woman would come back to the God who declared in baptism that he was willing to be her God. You see, these are the threads that Psalm 128 bring together, the blessing of children, the heart of God for family, the covenant faithfulness of God, God's vision for future generations. And that vision culminates in Psalm 128, when we are told that this God declares that when we respond to that covenant with a childlike fear of his name, we will know the blessing of a truly happy family.

And that's the theme of Psalm 128. That's my third point. Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord that walketh in his ways. Do you want happiness? Blessedness, you know the word blessedness here means internal happiness regardless of circumstances.

That's what you want, don't you? Happiness that is not dependent on outward circumstances. And that's the whole theme of this psalm. How do you know that? Well, because verse four repeats it.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. So open your Bibles if they're not open. Let's walk through these verses. You see, in Psalm 128, what you need to know in Hebrew is that there's no such thing as a Talic print. There's no such thing as underlining.

When you want to underline something in Hebrew poetry, you repeat it. When you see a short psalm like this, with this kind of repetition, you know that this is the theme of the psalm. The psalm is all about the man who truly fears God will be an inwardly happy, blessed man. And that God's delight is in that kind of a man. Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord that walketh in his ways.

And the psalm here actually speaks about work, about marriage, and about worship. All three creation ordinances, pre-fall ordinances. And what the Psalm is trying to tell us is that in God's mind, those three pre-fall ordinances that God gave between creation and the fall, that blessings, most blessings, most true happiness in human life radiates from these three centers, from your domestic situation, from your worship of God, and from your work. And so it's paramount, isn't it? If we're going to respond in covenantal faithfulness to a covenantally faithful God to us, we need to know what it means to fear the Lord, to be truly happy in the Lord.

And the one who's truly happy, who truly fears the Lord, is the one who fears a covenant God and who walks in his ways. So these two descriptions are Inseparable. If you fear the Lord, you walk in his ways. If you fear the Lord, you see, you are truly happy. It all works together.

So what does it mean to fear God? Fear of God involves three essential ingredients. First, a correct conception of God's character. You've got to know the God you fear. Second, a pervasive sense of God's presence.

Fear of God is an omnipresent, comprehensive thing in life. And third, you've got to know a constant awareness of our obligation to God. That every moment, every day, I'm called to love God above all, love my neighbors, myself, to fear and obey Him. There's never a moment, waking moment, even a sleeping moment, where I'm not called to fear the Lord. I love John Brown's definition, 19th century writer, of fearing God.

He says, to fear the Lord is to esteem and value, esteem and value the smiles and frowns of God to be of greater weight than the smiles and frowns of man. Fear of God is to have God be big and man small. The opposite of what we have by nature, man big, God small. The fear of God, as one Puritan put it, is the man who fears God will fear nothing else. The reverend fear of God is The key to faithfulness, covenantal faithfulness in any situation.

Godly fear shrinks from sin. The fear of God is inseparable, therefore, from true piety, pietas. Calvin said pietas, piety, is to reverence God, to love God, to obey God in Jesus Christ, to extol him in his attributes. What a beautiful thing the fear of God is. Fear of God, then, is living in a right relationship with God, in a correct honor and awe and reverence for God in every aspect of our lives.

And that fear of God bears all kinds of fruits, good fruits. It softens the heart. It makes the heart watchful. It promotes godly conversation. It helps us exercise self-denial.

It gives us a singleness of heart and mind in life. It moves us to compassion. It moves us to prayer. It makes us delight in God, in his son, in his commandments, in the work of his spirit. Thomas Watson said, the fear of God promotes spiritual joy.

It's the morning star that ushers in the sunlight of our comfort. The fear of God does so many good things. Fear of God restrains us from sin. The fear of God fosters integrity in our lives. The fear of God promotes obedience to his commandments.

The fear of God magnifies our love for God. The fear of God moves us to covenant loyalty, chesed, back to the God who gives chesed to us, so that we covenant our lives back to him who covenants himself to us. That we hold him fast like Jacob clung to the angel, he who holds us fast. That we love Him who first loved us. The fear of God trumps the slavish fear of men.

The fear of God promotes a healthy respect for the sacred discipline of our Father when He comes with chastening love in our lives. The fear of God produces a zeal for evangelism. The fear of God brings all kinds of blessings to us throughout the Psalms. Listen to this. God fears our promise true happiness, Psalm 112 verse one.

True wisdom, Psalm 32, divine goodness, Psalm 31, provision of every need, Psalm 34, divine protection, Psalm 33, overshadowing loving kindness, Psalm 103, and fulfilled desires, Psalm 149. The fear of God is amazing. Blessed is the man that fears the Lord and walks in his ways. This man will be happy. Now the psalm goes on to say how we'll be happy.

First it says you'll be happy, truly happy from within in your work. The man who Fears God shall eat the labor of thine hands, verse two, happy shalt thou be and it shall be well with thee. You know, only God fearers, only the true Christian enjoys his work in the fear of God, enjoys every achievement in his work, relishes every accomplishment as a token of God's love and grace. The man who fears God doesn't say TGIF, thank God it's Friday. He says TGIM, thank God it's Monday.

And Tuesday and Wednesday. Do you want to be happy young people just on the weekend like the world? What a terrible life, I'm gonna be unhappy five days of the week and two days I'm gonna be happy. Christian is Happy seven days of the week in the Lord because he enjoys his work in the fear of God. And why does he enjoy his work?

Well, because in his work, he has a God-glorifying purpose in view. You will never be happy in any area of your life if you don't wanna glorify God in that area. Because that's why God made you to glorify Him. You know, Horatius Bonar, 19th century, great pastor, great preacher, he was walking somewhere one day and they were doing some reconstruction on a church that he was walking by, and there was three guys down in kind of a dusty hole. It didn't look like a very pleasant job, and They were cutting things and shaping things, and dust was flying, and they were working on the church.

He stopped and talked to the three guys. He said to the first guy, he said, So, what are you doing? And the guy said, Well, I'm working. And he said, Well, yeah, but are you happy with your job? And the guy said oh well not really but it puts bread on the table.

And the next guy said well yeah I don't mind it it puts bread on the table but you know you gotta be doing something. The third guy who was working on the steeple of the church said, I love my work because I'm doing it for the glory of God. And Horatius Bonar said to him, what do you mean by that? And the guy said, you see what I'm doing down here? He said, that's going up there in the top of the steeple to glorify God.

Ah, said Horatius Bonar, that's the way to work. What I'm doing down here, I'm doing for him up there. Blessed is the man who works in the fear of God. You see, John Calvin said, when you work, you enjoy the fruit of your labor, but the world enjoys it only in a very temporary way, a shallow way. But The man who fears God can enjoy all the possessions he has in life like the world never can.

When you look at your car, you say, I enjoy my car because I use my car for the glory of God. So with your house, and yes, even much more importantly, your children and your spouse. You want to live together in the fear of God to the glory of God and that gives you genuine happiness, doesn't it, in your marriage when you are one on that. And the fear of God in your work helps you to handle life's disappointments. Disappointments in your work.

Joseph could endure the dungeons of Egypt because he knew that though men intended evil, God would mean things for good. Happy is the man in his labor of his hands. It shall be well with thee because he fears God. But the chapter goes on, something even better, you'll have happiness in your home. Don't we all want happiness in our home?

Look at verse three. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thy house. Thy children like olive plants round about thy table. What a joyful thing it is to have the blessing of a fruitful, godly wife. The fruitful wife manifests many graces from Christ in her life.

A vine is a symbol of fruitfulness. It produces refreshment and gladness. A God-fearing wife offers wise counsel to her husband. His heart safely trusts in her. She provides companionship, intimacy, and unspeakable joy in every area of life.

The image of a vine about the sides of the house, you know what it's like, boys and girls. A vine can just cover the side of the house. It's all encompassing. And you see, when your wife fears God, it's as if, well, in your marriage, she has an all-encompassing companionship in your life that you enjoy each other as husband and wife in the Lord with an unspeakable joy. And she becomes the most beautiful wife to you in all the world.

The blessed man in this Psalm is happy. He's happy in his work. He's happy in his God. He's happy in his wife. He's got a home of blessing, a home of prayer, a home of spiritual warmth, a home where they treat each other as Christ and the church treat each other, albeit with shortcomings.

There's a mutual commitment between husband and wife, a mutual love, a mutual respect, mutual goals, mutual spiritual understanding of the word of God, mutual use of the means of grace, mutual dependence on the word of God, mutual love, superior love for the son of God, mutual submission unto the Lord. What a blessing. When the man seeks to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and when the woman seeks to show reverence to her husband as the church shows it to Jesus Christ, happy as that man. And the text goes on to say, This blessed man is not only happy domestically with his wife, but also with his children. They're round about his dinner table.

They're like olive trees, not brambles. Like olive trees, they produce the oil of gladness. As young olive plants spring up around the parent's stem and come back to look in time like the parent's stem. Sometimes that frightens us. So children growing up at home, being instructed around the dinner table, will become, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, like their God-fearing parents.

If the fear of God is present in parents, this doesn't guarantee that every child will be saved, but it does bode well for those little shoots, like potted shoots that promise to become trees rich with olives later in life, that God-fearing man's children embody God's covenantal promise of numerous blessings for the future, blessings that will endure to old age under the sovereign giving of the Holy Spirit. Happy is that man who trains and instructs and nurtures his children in the same fear of God in which he himself lives and looks for marks and signs of grace that the Spirit is coming into the lives of his children and saving their souls and preparing them for glory. And then happy is the God-fearing man. Blessed is the God-fearing man. Verse five, in his worship, the Lord shall bless the out of Zion.

Thou shall see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Don't you love those verses? If you love the house of God, if church is your favorite place on earth as a forerunner of the eternal church in heaven, you will love this text. The Lord shall bless thee, He'll bless thee in the courts of Jerusalem. He'll bless your children there.

He'll bless your spouse there. Surely that man, That man who's at home in Zion, in Jerusalem, at home under the word, that man who can say, the Lord is my home in all dwelling places, that man is blessed indeed. On the Sabbath, the first day of the week, the Lord's day, you receive the food and strength you need to endure throughout the week, week after week, year after year, oh, happy is that man who loves to come up to the house of God, who says, one thing have I desired of the Lord, Psalm 27, to behold the beauty of the Lord in his temple. Happy is that man. And that man has a happy future.

Look at verse six. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children in peace upon Israel. This verse has meant a lot more to me in the last five years of my life than ever before because I became a grandpa five years ago. I had children's children. Every one of those seven precious grandchildren I've been privileged, my wife and I have been privileged to embrace at birth, I've looked into their faces, every one of them.

Even the first time I saw them, I just repeated these words, just repeated these words, thou shall see thy children's children and peace upon Israel. God is faithful. There's no greater joy than to see your children walk in the truth and to come to God for the same covenant blessings for your grandchildren and to believe and trust in him and pray those children full and to be with them and to teach them, to instruct them, to take those little grandchildren on your lap and talk to them about the ways of the Lord. You know, I'm just beginning to know that joy. Some of you have much more experience at that than I do.

Just a few weeks ago, one of our four-year-old grandchildren was sitting on my lap, my wife sitting next to me, and we started to talk to her about the Lord, and she said, Grandpa, Grandma, I think I'm, I think I'm going to hell because I'm a bad child." Oh, I rejoiced at that. And I said to her, my wife said to her, we both brought her the Gospel, that there's hope in Jesus Christ for you. You can be saved as a four year old child, repent of your sin and go to Jesus, ask him to heal you, to help you, to save you. And she just stared at us, didn't say a word, she just stared at us. Oh, what a joy to have that responsibility.

What a privilege. Happy is that man who has children's children and will one day see peace upon Israel. Inward, spiritual peace in your children, in your grandchildren. I can still remember my dad when all five of us children were saved, when my youngest sister became saved as well. His prayer, which had always been, Lord, help us to be an undivided family, reserved for the heavenly mansions above, and we cannot miss any of you children at the right side of the Lord Jesus Christ on the great day.

Suddenly he said in his prayer, Lord, you said we may believe now that all of our children are saved, but now the grandchildren, Lord, they need it too. They need it too. Help us to be an undivided family, reserved for the heavenly mansions above, from generation to generation to a thousand generations. This is the heart of God, to the God-fearing family. You see, if God takes someone from outside of his covenant line, and he brings that person into church membership, into the covenant line through regeneration, and that person becomes a church member and that person has children.

You see, there's a covenantal line. There's a gravitational pull into that covenantal line. God works covenantally. It's all through the Psalms. It's all through the Bible.

And He'll bring them from far and from near into covenant with Him, and then He'll work through the generations, that's His normal way. He's a covenant-keeping God, blesses a man, who responds to that and fears the Lord, he shall have peace, he shall experience peace upon Israel. Oh, may God help us, May God help us to be God-fearers in response to His covenant mercies, to be our God and the God of our seed and our seed-seed forever and ever. And what will it be in the great day to be around the throne of the Lamb with your children and your grandchildren. Well, then the millions and millions will all be your family and you belong to the biggest family ever, ever, ever.

And you see your goal therefore is not to end in your little nuclear family or your rather big nuclear family, But your goal then is to see that nuclear family enfolded into the larger family that no man can number. The family that will never die. The family that will last forever. The family that will be married to Jesus Christ in utopian marriage forever where there will be true happiness without a flaw, utopian future, utopian marriage, utopian family. Heaven, said Jonathan Edwards, a world of love.

Why wouldn't you fear God? Ask God for grace to be or to be strengthened in being That happy man, that happy woman, that happy boy, girl, teenager who fears the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, bless us. Bless us as married couples with the fear of thy name, that we may walk in thy ways, that we may eat the labor of our hands, so that we may be truly happy, and that it may be well with us.

Let our wives be as fruitful vines in our homes. Grace us with children, grandchildren, who may be like all the plants round about our table. Teach us, Lord, that if we fear thee, as head of the home, and as wives and mothers, these blessings shall accrue to us. Bless us in worshiping thee in thy house. Grant us to see thy church prosper all the days of our lives.

O Lord, let the fear of thy name lead us to true blessedness at work, in the home, and in thy house, so that for Christ's sake we may see our children's children and peace upon thy spiritual Israel in this life and a better one to come forever all for Jesus sake. Amen. Well I need to say there's still some time tonight for a book table and the bookstore will be open for another hour and a half or so and I wanted to just say to you that there are a lot of good family books there at the different vendors so Please come and join us and pick up books that really will serve your family in the fear of God. We are assaulted today in the family. Carl Truman has written an amazing book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self over against the God-fearing self.

This book will really enlighten you to the issues that we're battling today and to how people view themselves and will help us in our evangelism if we understand that. But also, Theology Made Practical, these are studies on John Calvin and how he viewed family and life itself and truth, and we encourage you to get that book as well. This is not a deep book on theology that you can't understand, but Theology Made Practical will help you understand Calvin and his covenantal vision for the church as well. God bless you and Have a good night.