Our foundational purpose and duty in life is to glorify God. While we can look at the public school system and easily see the failures, both academically and morally, we cannot base homeschool off of merely reacting to it. Instead, we must have the glory of God as our foundation, both by honoring God in training our children and in training them to honor Him as well.

It's a pleasure to be here with you, and I want to tell you one thing before I start, that Tom Ford, Don Hart, and Scott Brown all have in common, and there's some of my favorite people in the world anyway, but one of the things I admire about them that you might not know if you haven't been to their homes is that all of them, Don's family lives right near his father and mother and takes good care of them and they're great people. I was just there a short while and felt like I was best friends with his dad. He's such a nice man. And then Scott Brown, as many of you probably do know, his dad, who's 96, the sweetest guy you'd ever meet, He lives with them and they take care of them. And then Tom Ford, his wife, their parents, Mimi and Gran, which are here tonight, live right next door to them, so they're there just to allow them, one, to influence and be a blessing to their children, but to honor their father and mother.

I just wanted to tell you, Scott Brown practices what he's preaching, and so do the other men. Even into, you know, 50 years, 60 years after being the children, still honoring their father and their mother. So the importance of that is it's hard to even put a value on young people and older people. We're supposed to do that because God told us to do that. And so what I'm talking about tonight is, fits so nicely, I'm so thankful with what Mr.

Brown was just speaking on. What's the purpose of life? One of you young people, do you know what the purpose of our life here on this earth is? To glorify God, right? And as he was just talking about, how do we do that?

We do that by loving God. And how do we love God? By keeping his commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Okay?

And so that, But that goes into every area of our life. So obedience is how we glorify God. As I've watched things take place over my life and in other people's life around me, I've noticed that if you want to reap the full benefits of God's blessing through obedience, you need to do the things He's asked you to do, but for the right reasons, out of your love for Him. Not for other reasons, it's out of that love for Him when you can learn to find that joy and fulfillment and pleasure in Him. We're more than consequences, more than anything, the reason you want to do what's right and obey is because you love him.

And you don't want to do things you know he would not want you to do. And we've had an interesting experience that we've been able to travel so much around the country. Just in 2016 alone, we were in 40 different states, having a different meeting in a different town every night for I think 150 consecutive days, and it was a busy schedule. But through that, we've had a glimpse into what is going on and what's happening in families all over the country, and good families. And an older gentleman I met, he told me, he said, "'Curtis, you'll know if you were a good father, not by how your children turn out, but by how your grandchildren turn out.

I thought about it and I was like, he's right. That's what I've seen as I've traveled the country and that's my admonition to you that I want to talk about a little bit tonight. I've seen people doing the right things and there's a certain amount of blessing that comes along with just doing things the right way. But I don't think the full blessing is there when there's not the vision behind the action to know why I'm doing this and the importance of it and then passing that down to the young people. Because I've seen a lot of families where they're kind of finishing the parenting stage and they're starting to see the grandchildren come out and they're being very sober to find, maybe we didn't do as good a job as we thought.

Because the kids seem good, they were squeaky clean from being in a clean environment, which is a huge blessing. But maybe they didn't put quite as much into their children as they thought they did. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Homeschooling for the right reasons. I think it's of utmost importance that we do that as every part of our life.

It's for the right reason. So we understand why we're doing it, and when you understand why, you're not just doing, well that's what we do in our church, that's what starts to give you the vision of, oh this is why we're doing this, and you start to see where you're heading, and then this book opens up to you the map of how to get there, and it's totally different. But it's not happening near as often as it should be, because the kids are going off course. Just in Idaho alone, where we were from for 17 years. They did a survey a couple years ago before we left of all the homeschoolers, and it has more homeschoolers per capita than any state in the nation back then.

And of all the kids that had been homeschooled, and now we're starting to have families, they surveyed all of them. Guess what percentage were homeschooling their own children? 20%. I mean, they were shocked, the people that, I knew, the nice Christian lawyers and things that set the thing up, and they just go, oh my goodness, it means it's dying off. This isn't going to keep growing and doing things here if, And they said the same thing.

Our conclusion is they don't know why they were homeschooled, and they don't know the price that was paid for them to be able to be homeschooled. So they're taking it for granted. They just think, oh, it was just an educational choice. And I'm glad my parents chose it, but We're going to choose Christian school or government school. So here's—I just need to lay a little foundation that you probably know, but it helps build an understanding of the importance of this.

You know that the government system is a complete failure. That's probably why you're homeschooling. But the purposefulness behind that needs to be understood so that you understand that the battle is really for your children, whether they're in those government schools or not. If you just study just a quick overview, John Dewey is considered to be the man that's the head and father of our government schools. Okay?

Well, you look into his life for five seconds and you see he was a founding member of the Socialist Society in America. He was a founding member of the ACLU. Back then when the ACLU started, its office was literally in the Communist Party headquarters USA in New York City. I mean, they weren't hiding where they were coming from. Okay, he wrote the Humanist Manifesto.

Read that if you want to know why our schools are the way they are. Here's the reality. Our schools are doing exactly what they were designed to do perfectly. Create an immoral, dumbed-down, useful idiot that is not capable of taking care of himself. So he will have to be dependent on big government.

And they're being very successful at doing that. And that's what's happened. So you young people that were your parents have chosen to homeschool you, and they're taking the time and effort to do that, you should be on your knees every night thanking God that He was so kind to put you in a family where they understood the proper responsibility of the parents to fulfill Deuteronomy 6 and everything. The blessing you have been given is you can't even calculate it. But that's where things are.

Now here's where I start to get into the homeschool aspect of this. We know their system is a complete and total failure, right? I see too many families as I travel the country trying to duplicate that system in the home. You can't do that. Eight periods, eight subjects, all this stuff.

By doing that, maybe you have a better curriculum, Maybe you have, but you're missing the point of everything Scott Brown just talked about. If we want to raise these children to love and fear God, we got to be doing things differently, much differently. We can't just do the same old thing. And the reality is this, if I were to come, and you've put this pressure on yourself mentally by thinking about this, if I was to come and stay in your home for one week, and to watch you homeschool, and just to sit there quietly, not say anything for one week. When I was done, what do you think my analysis of your family would be?

Would I say they are homeschooling to glorify God? Or would I say something else? Well, their homeschooling to get a really good education or to get into a good college is their main focus. Anything except their homeschooling to glorify God is misguided, no matter how well-intentioned. Because our duty on this earth, from the day we're born till the day we die, is to glorify God.

And if we're not preparing our children inside the home to do that, it's not gonna happen. Just like Scott was saying, children, if you do not learn to obey your parents, you'll find out real quickly in life, wow, I sure wish I would have. Because the spankings the world gives and God gives through circumstances and reaping what you have sown are so much worse than a few moments of stinging from a loving parent that looks at you and says, I love you, please obey. And if you don't learn it now, most of the time, you don't ever. That's how important that is.

Some of the mechanics. I used to be a high school math teacher. So I've been in that world and understand how that works. And here's just a few suggestions as I keep going through my different content. But I wanted to, I've just seen so many mothers, especially as we've traveled the country, that are just worn out.

Homeschooling's burying them. It's not a blessing to them. It's just a burden, and it's not supposed to be that way. It's absolutely not supposed to be that way. And one of the things I think you can consider doing, And I always, of course, you need to do what you think God wants you to do.

But just some advice from a teacher and someone that homeschools also. I found when I was a teacher, September and October every year were spent just reviewing what we'd already done the year before because they forgot it over the summer. And I would come in, the students would come in and we'd start going through stuff in the book and I remember someone even saying, Mr. Bowers we had this last year. I go, I know, and guess what?

We wouldn't have to go over it except you forgot it all. And I started to realize, wait a minute, there is so much wasted time in this system when you're having to constantly be relearning things that you already have learned. And it adds to the boredom and monotony of it, too. So I want to encourage you to consider going year-round. I just, I've seen, I know in our life it's been a blessing, because then you have a much lighter schedule, because you're just doing all year.

You don't have to have all this review time each year. Usually they can start the next book or whatever you're using, about three or four or five chapters into it, because they realize, no, I know how to do all these. I can do a few problems from each of these chapters or whatever it is. And so it cuts down your burden. Why?

To free you up to do the real education. Mothers, there is nothing more valuable, there's no better way you can educate your little girls than to go bake cookies with them, to do the laundry with them and the garden and to prepare the meals cheerfully and enjoy your family and to talk to them and being wise while you're spending that time with them, telling them all the things you've learned in your life of how to be wise and how to do it God's way and the consequences of not doing that. And then, as you analyze things, as a teacher, you realize most people's learning is out of books, which nothing wrong with that. But as I look back, even over my own personal life, I went K through 12, so that's 13 years. Then I went and got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree, so that's six more years.

So when I turned 24, I'd spent 19 years sitting in a desk listening to people talk about things, which I couldn't stand. I was just, oh, when am I going to do something in life? It was just, it was hard for me to bear but that's just what you did in my generation. If you don't go to college, you'll never do anything. Well, I look back now, having 30 years past that happen, and I realize of those 19 years sitting there seven hours a day, There's not 5% of that that in any way was beneficial to me in being a good husband or father or businessman or anything.

I remember one of my biggest disappointments was college. I'd always had this picture of myself as a little boy, when I go to graduate from college one day, I'll be this big man and whatever. And I remember my college graduation, I walked out to the car to get my cap and gown and I asked Lauren to marry me. We were getting ready to be married. And I just thought back over my life and I thought, you know what?

I'm the same little boy I was back then. I'm just older. And I was so disappointed. I realized what had happened is You go to college after K through 12, 13 years of all the basics. And then your first two years, I was shocked.

You go, you gotta take all the English and math and stuff. Again, I've just done that for 13 years. And I had been at a prep school, so it was kinda harder than normal. So I get to college, I go, oh, for two more years, just sitting there, filling out the answers, whatever. And then you finally, your third year, now I'm gonna get to take classes in my major.

And I love business things. I love reading books about businessmen and stuff, and then I found out all my professors, they've never run a business in their life. They just went through bachelor's, master's, doctorate in business, and now they're teaching it. So it's all theory. And it was very disappointing.

I just tell you that to tell you that we're missing things by thinking, doing again things the way we've always done them is going to work. It's not. I've worked three months at a business under a man that had a very successful restaurant, and I learned more in three months from him than if I had five college degrees in business. The practical application of things, and that's what we need to look for. But so consider, again, consider year-round education, so you can cut it back, you can be more flexible with your schedule, if there's things you need to do as a family and not be a slave to the school schedule.

And then, book learning, have that be a portion of their education, but a small portion because so much of that is not applicable to life, like life education is. And just like I talked about the little girl with the mother, if the young men are with their daddy, sitting on the truck seat asking questions and being with them, you just learn so much. I remember being where I was buying a piece of property or something in Idaho and I'd have my little boys sitting there and the realtor's like, what are they doing here? I go, I just wanted to see what men do when they buy a piece of property so they understand how that works and so they won't be intimidated to do that. Whatever it was, I would just try to take them with me wherever I went, and then just talk to them and love on them.

And of course we do the books and all that too, but I just realized from my own experience, books didn't get me too far in life by themselves. But they take up the time that you could use to invest in the important things of teaching them to glorify God. Now The heart of the matter is this. It's hard to go right before the ice cream. But, and after two great talks where I couldn't figure out if I was the cleanup hitter or, well everyone will be so tired by then.

But for the heart of the matter is this. Last summer and over the last several years, I had some real health problems that got very serious where I started to think I might not be around much longer. And the blessing of that is I started to see things more from an internal perspective. And I want to tell you this, maybe you're young, healthy, and feel like you've got all the time in the world. You might not.

Don't presume on anything, okay? Car wrecks take out more people than almost anything else. Don't you presume you've got 20 more years with your kids or live to be 85, you might not. And so we need to live in the reality that life is a vapor and we are not promised a certain amount of it. Today might be our last day, or next month, or maybe next year at this conference, several of us will not be here.

Are you living in such a way to maximize that vapor while you were here? I just was able to analyze my whole life as I had a couple close calls where I just couldn't breathe, have some lung issues, and I started to realize, you know what, I will never on my deathbed, breathing my last breath, go, oh, I didn't get to teach the boys calculus. Or I didn't get, none of that. I'll say, did I teach them everything I knew that was true and right and good? And did I model it to them?

And in Proverbs it says, my son give me thine heart, let thine eyes observe my ways. Do you say that to your children? I hope you do. And I hope when you say that, you realize what you're saying. You're saying, I want you to turn out like me, which means you better be living in such a way, If their eyes are observing your ways, it's a good thing.

It's a consistent thing. And it's a real thing. Or when you blow it, I'm sorry for doing that. And so even in your failure, God will use it as a blessing to teach them. Men can say, I'm sorry, I blew it.

Would you forgive me? And I just, I realized, wow. It just gave me a fresh perspective. That is the blessing of being sick with anything. Is it pulls you out of this fantasy world that feels like, oh, I'm only 53, I've probably got another 30 years, or whatever.

And this fantasy, which is presuming, and God does not want us to presume on tomorrow about anything. He said, you worry about today and being faithful today. I will worry about tomorrow for you. And so Kind of wrapping up these things There's so many different parts of this, but here's the thing. If we do things out of our love for God, it's easy to keep doing them, even when it seems like we're not reaping a benefit.

Children, if you obey your parents simply because you do not want to spank them, that's a good start and that's God intended us to do that, to start training for the mind to understand there's consequences and there's suffering involved when you choose to disobey. But as young as you can be, where you start to go, it's not the spanking I'm worried about, It's displeasing God. I love Him and I want to please Him. And the sooner you can get to that level, then, if you wash the dishes one day in your house when no one asks you to, and nobody noticed to thank you, you'll still keep doing it. Because you didn't do it for your parents, you did it for Jesus.

And he's always watching, and he always cares, and he doesn't miss anything. And he knows also if you didn't get thanked. And He knows that that is tough sometimes, when you did something and you were hoping people would notice and they didn't. But you'll keep doing it. If you're doing the things just not to get a spank in, your motivation is not there, where you're not gonna do the extra things, you're not gonna be obedient.

In everything God's told us to do, just the ones of, well, children, obey your parents, Lord, for this is right. That has a consequence with it, so obey that one. But these other ones don't seem to, nobody's looking. And it gives you proper motivation. And you men, if you're loving your wife, cuz you're hoping that she will be kind and affectionate to you, and that's your motivation, what could happen?

If she's not kind and affectionate to you because you did something loving and kind, you might stop doing it. And that's the danger. But if you did it because God said our marriage is a picture of the church, and I'm supposed to love her like He loves the church, then it doesn't matter if anything she's given me a good example of the church, how God loves us and we don't respond the way he wants us to through his love. And so you'll keep doing it. And so that's my heart in this, is I want you to know, you've got to think through it yourself, but then express it to your children.

We do what is right because we love God and we want to keep his commandments because obedience is glorifying God and that's our only point of being here on this earth. Here on this earth. In James chapter 1, I think this should be the point of homeschooling. Verse 5 it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God which giveth to all men liberally in a braideth knot, and it shall be given him. The only criteria for you to become a wise person, it goes on to say there, is that you ask in faith, believing God can make you wise.

And God can make you wise. Proverbs chapter 2 says, My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee, so that thou incline thy ear unto wisdom, and apply thy heart to understanding, If thou cryest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hidden treasure, then shall thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. That's the point of homeschooling, is to help them find the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Parents, we have a huge task God has given us, and it's one I'm working on and I know all of you are working on. And thankfully, God is so gracious and He knows how pathetic we can be.

But the wonderful thing about the way he designed things is he created a day and he created a night. He created seasons and years to give us places of starting fresh. Each morning when you wake up, maybe I blew it yesterday, but I'm gonna work on it today. And to keep going forward, starting fresh every day as we try our best to do the things he's asked us to do, knowing that if we are wise, we will obey God. And if we obey God, we are glorifying God.

And that's our point of being here on earth. So I encourage you to spend more time with your children, studying what it means to be wise in the Bible, and the application of it, and then talking to them. The best teacher is the world around us. Pointing out to them, I always point out to my kids, every time one of the Hollywood movie stars or sports athletes, every time they commit suicide or something I go, I've done this right to you. Look, do you see this?

This is someone that had everything the world says you need to be happy, And they couldn't make it one more day. It's a lie. There's poison. These people, they were rich and famous and good looking and had everything. And they couldn't go one more day.

That we need to expose a lie, the world's acting like it's just a fantasy land of fun and games, there's no consequences, and we have to tell our kids, I'm sorry, look at this. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death." Kids, God is God. Okay? He's always watching. He knows exactly your thoughts and intents of your heart.

And you parents too, all of us. Make sure your heart is clean before Him. Make sure that His greatest desire is to please Him, and ask Him to help you with that. Because young people, if you get wisdom, here's what you get. That the world has all this stuff to offer you, and it's all smoke and mirrors.

Here's what you get with wisdom. Proverbs 3, verses 13. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches in her honor.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is everyone that retaineth her." Don't you want that for your children? That's what I want for my children." God has been so kind to, no matter what our position in life, no matter what, if we're ever up on a stage in front of people or not, He has given us a vehicle through the family, through marriage and the family, to change the world. If you have no influence outside of your family, but you are faithful with what He's given you, the amazing thing about the way He's designed things is when you're gone, it keeps multiplying and multiplying and multiplying, your influence. I hope and pray that a hundred years from now when I've been gone for a long time, my influence in this world is a thousand times what it is today.

Because God has honored us trying to keep his commandments and teach our children to be wise and they understood the fear of the Lord is everything. Let me close in prayer. Dear God, we just thank you. Thank you for the Bible, where we can see the truth and understand. We can see the examples of your people when they were blessed by you for obedience and they were cursed by you and they disobeyed.

We can see that we do reap what we sow. And I just ask you to help each of us in this room truly live a life that is obedient, that is humble, that is loving towards you, and that glorifies you. Please help us with our children. We need your help. You have to put a hedge about us and help us to finish the course in what you've given us to do.

We cannot do it without you. We have to have you to get this done. But we want to get it done so that generations from now, when we have multiplied, they are still glorifying you, and they are still following your commandments, and you have used them to change the world for you so that you can be glorified and you can be praised. And people can see by the light of our lives and our family trees that you are real and that you are right and you are true and they cannot deny the light in the darkness they're living in. And we love you.

Thank you for this conference. Thank you for just all of us being able to be here together to enjoy each other and to encourage each other and to lift each other up. We love you very much. In Jesus' name, amen.