In his sermon 'Must Revive the Family Economy in Babylon,' Kevin Swanson emphasizes the importance of restoring the family economy, a concept he claims has been lost in the past 50 years due to societal shifts such as capitalist corporations and state control through education laws. He argues that historically, families worked together, citing biblical figures like David, Aquila, and Priscilla, and references the Fourth Commandment regarding rest on the Sabbath. Swanson believes that without a family economy, children are not prepared for future roles in society or within God's kingdom. He points out the detrimental effects of modern education and leisure activities on young men, resulting in a lack of maturity and character by age 30. Swanson concludes that while he sees little hope for the current civilization, the Church of Jesus Christ can foster a revival of the family economy, planting 'gardens in the ashes' of a declining society.

Well, the family economy is so essential. Really, the family economy begins at the beginning of time. It's only been the last 50 years or so in which the family economy has died, especially in the Western world. Children and our wives have been shifted off to the capitalist corporations and then eventually shifted off from there to the control of the state through the compulsory attendance laws and the child labor laws. So the family economy was destroyed in the latter part of the 1800s on into the 1900s.

Our goal is to restore the family economy and we've done that in our family. I provided something of a family economy so my daughters would have something to do. It took a period of about 10 to 15 years to bring that about. But Rachel was feeding her father sheep. Rebecca was feeding her father sheep.

David was feeding his father sheep. Aquila and Priscilla, they were tent makers. So that view of family economy goes all the way back. In fact, the Fourth Commandment also refers to our sons and daughters working six days, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. You shall do no work, you nor your sons nor your daughters.

So the idea of the family working together as a lean, mean oikonomia machine goes all the way back from the beginning and And I just don't think it's possible for us to raise our daughters to be helpers for their husbands and Oikos Despotel's or managers of the home unless We provide something by training context in those early years for our daughters and for our sons. By the way here's a recipe for disaster. Take a nine-year-old boy, maybe a little bit hyperactive, he's got ADD, ABD, American Boy Disease, whatever it is, and you say you got to do five hours of schoolwork per day. So you bolt him to that desk for five hours, and then you reward him with playing video games and goofing off for the next seven, eight hours per day. And you do that for the next 12 years.

That will utterly destroy that boy. So what do you do? You've got to provide a family economy for your sons and for your daughters. It's family economy or bust. It's family economy or we will not be preparing our sons and daughters for work and for kingdom labor and for the life that God would have them to live.

The reason the majority of young men, 70, 80 percent, 90 percent young men not grown up by 30 years of age, and that's up from 30% in 1970. The reason why boys are playing games while Rome burns down is because they've lost a will to live and they've no longer have the character to sustain an economy. So this is essential for any kind of a civilization. I don't think there's hope for the civilization that's out there right now, but I do think there's hope within the context of the Church of Jesus Christ. We can plant the gardens and the ashes of what used to be a civilization.

And so this is a call to return to God's standard, God's Word, God's will for family life in the 21st century.