In his sermon, 'The Sufficiency of Scripture for Family Life,' Kevin Swanson emphasizes the importance of placing trust in the Word of God to save families from disintegration. Swanson argues that radical problems call for radical solutions, and that the only way to salvage the family is to radically restructure our thinking about it. He cites Matthew 19:5-6, which speaks to the oneness of the family, as the primary verse to remember. Swanson contends that the demise of the family is due to the influence of philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Plato, and Karl Marx, who have promoted the dissolution of the family as part of their social construct. He calls for repentance and a return to the biblical principles of family life in order to save families from disintegration.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Kevin Swanson with the message, The Sufficiency of Scripture for family life. As I say every morning from my basement out in Elbert, Colorado, welcome to Generations Radio Broadcast. I'm broadcasting from a safe distance from the demise of Western civilization roughly 50 miles from Denver from my basement. And we have five children. I'm a father, I'm a husband, and not a very good one.

But by God's grace, he's making something out of us. And I'm delighted that God has worked so much in my own life and my family's life and I really need to begin today as I speak on family with my own father because my father raised us on an island out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and this is what it looks like. He isolated us in a pretty significant way. I remember we were missionaries in Japan and my father came out to visit us this would have been about five or six years ago and I asked him why he went to the mission field in Japan he said he wanted to preach the gospel to the Japanese but there's something more important that was working in him at the time and that was he decided that because he had been teaching in American public schools in 1950s American private schools in the 1960s he did not want to raise us in this culture. So I went to the mission field and raised us on an island and and we we had a strange culture we didn't we were not Americans we were Swansonians my father really isolated us we didn't have American television I remember watch one movie in all of the 1970s It was 1975 and my dad said okay, we're gonna watch a movie.

It's coming all over NHK broadcasting in Japan And it was sound of music So we were watching sound of music, but you know what we didn't make it through the whole thing Because I about halfway through my dad was getting visibly nervous because I was getting a little romantic. Remember the part I am 16 going on 17? The part where they I mean they didn't really kiss but my dad just said okay that's it he turned off the television set off to bed bedtime so so that was the extent of American culture we enjoyed in the 1970s and and yet see my father really took it seriously he had to get us out of this culture he had to exit America and raise his children somewhere else. And so that's what he did. And you know let me give you a little more to the story because he told me this later on.

My father was raised in a Christian home in Wheaton, Illinois, Gary, Indiana for a while and his younger brother went to a boarding school. His father, my grandfather, got the idea that maybe we ought to just send our children to boarding schools because that's what Billy Graham was doing at the time and that's what the evangelicals did. Many of the missionaries did that sort of thing all the way past 1830 or so and so my grandfather did the same thing with his younger two siblings and in the process lost their hearts and the the my uncle his youngest son turned into homosexual and died of AIDS in San Francisco. I was at his funeral in 1983, I believe it was. So my father, here is my father in 1969, and by the way, we're on the way to the Philippines.

We were going to the Philippines. We wound up in Japan. We're going to the Philippines. And my father was told by the mission at that time, World Misses to Children, that we would have to go to boarding school. The children would have to go to boarding school in Manila if we went to the mission field in the Philippines.

Well, we were on our way to the Philippines. We had our tickets, we had our boxes, all I remember the labels with the Philippines on the shipping boxes. And at the last moment they said, you're sending your children to boarding school, my father said, over my dead body that's going to happen. So they said, you're not going. He said, that's fine.

They came back to him later and said well you can go to Japan though and if you go to Japan you can homeschool your children in Japan. And that my friends is how the homeschooling movement began in America in 1969. My father had a commitment to number one take on his father's vision to the extent that it was in accord with the Word of God but he knew that he had to do something different something vastly different than what had been done for the previous hundred fifty years in American history and that is to get his children out of this culture and homeschool them himself and that's that's how it all began for us back in 1969 And I thank the Lord that happened for us because right now we are staring straight down the barrel of the demise of the family here in America. We're seeing the death of the family. And I say that because 40% of children were born without fathers in 19, in just the last year, and that's up from 6% in 1960.

This is probably the most defining statistics in terms of the family that you could you could find. Half of marriage is in to divorce, 95% of Americans confessed to premarital sex, and Rutgers University found that Americans have the weakest families in the Western world. So you know all the statistics the family is dying, or is about to die, and the Christian family is not doing all that much better. And I'll give you a couple of instances to give you a picture of what's going on right now in America because right now we're seeing a radical radical problem things are falling apart at the seams and I think this is where it all begins if people don't understand the problem We're never ever ever going to be able to frame any kind of a solution. We're not going to be motivated to the solution.

It's the same reason why you don't hear the law of God and understand your sin before a holy and a righteous and a just God. You will never ever ever seek the redemption of Christ. You've got to understand something of the bad news if you're going to understand the good news and this is my way out today I remember a while back I was surrounded by a group of very conservative pastors an average ordinary conservative churches in America I won't point a finger at anybody but I'll just say they're ordinary churches you'd see them in any street corner evangelical conservative pastors and they're pointing the finger at me saying why are you doing this family-integrated thing you have no Sunday schools youth groups you are you are damaging your church where in the world are you doing these sorts of things and and where are you talking about homeschooling and home discipleship and getting those kids out of your public schools, where you never teach those sorts of things, you're binding men's conscience who says on and on and on, I turn to them and I said, I have a problem that 65% of American children under six years of age are latchkey.

That's an issue with me. 63% of American kids latchkey. Up from one to 2% just went 40, 50 years ago. 65% of American children under 6 years of age are latchkey. I have a real big problem with that.

I think we're over delegating education right now and we've got to do something about it this guy's looking at me I said so what's wrong with that now see is the dividing line between those who are reacting to what is happening before them right now and those who could care less. They'll have no idea what is happening to their family around them without a vision of purpose. I think there will be a lack of vision concerning the problem the problem is severe I ever came across my desk I can't give you all the details but in this little 15 year old Christian girl, and I have plenty of it, the Christian girl goes to church two, three times a week. This is a kind of Christian girl. She lives in the San Francisco area and she attends the most dangerous public school in the San Francisco area, potentially the most dangerous public skull in all of Southern California and several years ago, her father dropped her off at the Skull Homecoming Dance, and during that time she got drunk and America's government happened!

If you know what I'm talking about, judges turn around, the court command is tossed out to a mob, and then she was cut up in pieces and sent to the troops by an initial. That has happened in our country and what happened to us is a long ago! America's good guy has happened in this country. Two of the conservative evangelical pastors in Colorado, two or three years ago, confessed to a homosexual resonance. They admitted to it, one of them being the head of the National Association of evangelicals.

And evangelicalism died that day. Parashar told me yesterday he's not considering himself an evangelical. I have not considered myself an evangelical for at least a year now. I'm not an evangelical. The word is useless to me.

So, where are we today? The family is in shambles. The Christian family is falling apart at the seams. And here's the point I really want to make radical problems call for radical solutions if God is Working in the hearts of families today, they'll come to repentance if they see their sin. They see where they have fallen short of God's expectations.

The family is falling apart. The faith is in disintegration. John Mecum from Newsweek magazine came out with a front page article four or five months ago that any of you see at the end of Christian America. It's over. We are in the largest apostasy that the world has ever experienced numbers-wise.

Hundreds of millions of people are not calling themselves Christians as they did in 1970. Hundreds of millions of people are not calling themselves Christians in Europe and Canada, North America, and here in the United States. The next 20 to 30 years, the faith will hardly exist anymore. You are living in that apostasy. We're losing our freedoms right unless here in Colorado SB 200 was signed a year or so ago banning the Bible if you distribute the Bible you talk about Homosexuality being a sin the state of Colorado you are up for one year in prison in our state as of last year.

Okay these things are happening we're losing the faith family we're losing freedom and if we are losing the faith I would tell you this a 30-minute Sunday school will not salvage the faith in the Western world. If we are losing the family, a little 20-30 minute family time on Friday evening is not going to salvage the family. And if we are losing our freedoms, if we're losing liberties, if the family is faith, if our nation is falling apart right now, I'm sorry, but a hockey mom from Alaska with one more kid with a kid born out of wedlock is not going to salvage the Republic that my friends is the most controversial thing I've ever said but I say it with grief I say it with honesty I say to people who hopefully still have a modicum of sense left in their brain. I'm sorry but the hockey mom from Alaska will not save the Republic. There has to be something more radical than that.

Far more radical. We've got to do something extreme if we're gonna salvage these things and it's called repentance let's start with the Word of God let's start with the Word of God And this is my premise you must be radically and You must radically revamp your theological system a social system if you will salvage the family in the year 2050 That is the people attending this conference and and by the way I'm not saying everybody who just attended this conference is automatically going to salvage the family and faith for the next 40 years okay that was not on the registration form but but if you take the Word of God and you begin to apply it and then use it to radically restructure the way you have been thinking about the family and the way you do your social systems. We will have a shot at salvaging the family in the year 2050. And let's begin with Matthew chapter 19 and verse 3. This is the verse that I want you to remember.

We'll start with verse 5. Jesus said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they too shall be one. Wherefore they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. That's it.

That word, spoken by the Almighty, the God who created heaven and earth, the God who knows all things, that one word that I just read is enough to save the family by the year 2050. That's it. The problem though is that most people read these words and God's Word dies the death of a thousand qualifications. God's Word doesn't really speak authoritatively. When they see what's happening to the marriage and to family, they see the disintegration of the family, they don't see the truth that shines out of these words.

The Word of God says, the two shall become one and they are no longer two we begin with the oneness of the family and this oneness of the family has been reversed theologically in this country it began with the 1700s and 1800s among the Presbyterian and Baptist churches where American Christianity became intensely individualistic and there will have to be repentance in this area among us among the people who are waking up and discovering that God has a different vision different idea of the family than the idea that we have inherited from our theological forefathers God speaks of a family as a one as a household with a head and even as Christ is head of the church the father the husband is head of the wife head of the home and the Bible constructs the household as a unity this is something that's been largely missing in our modern world we speak our church of the household being a blob we speak of blobs around our church our church itself is a blob we believe and we believe the house holds themselves are a blob and you've got to stop individuating the people in these households they come to church and they worship as households as a blob you know what I'm talking about when I say a blob it's it's it's it's a one thing it's an organic one thing with a big father head sticking out of the top and a mama head on the side and little baby heads all around sticking out of the blob they're connected into a unit a household the Bible speaks of the household as a unit Romans chapter 16 of there's a very very strange verses in the Bible that have to be cast off because people have the wrong theological construct and it's really hard to jam these verses in so you've got to skip over them Romans chapter 16 speaks of the house of Narcissus so the family of Narcissus which is in Christ the household of Narcissus which is in Christ what does that mean somebody better go home and start thinking about that for the next 20 years there is a sense in which households my household the household of Kevin Swanson is in Christ you say well how in the world can that happen I don't know I'm just reading the Bible and believing it somebody's gonna start having to believe the Bible here too this is what the Bible speaks of well in America we saw Christianity our theology individualized everything was an individual experience and then eventually The vote was individualized remember that 1880s Wyoming was the first state to bring in the individualized vote we didn't have household voting anymore in America and Then the 1900s economies were individualized, but why why were these things individualized number one?

It was because we negated a biblical concept of the family the family being a unit the family being a corporate blah but number two you had humanists working because humanists believe that man is an individual any belongs first and foremost to the state. And the family and the church needs to be obliterated from our social construct. This begins with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. And Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a man who never was married, but when he had five children, he had his living girlfriend who lived with him his whole life, his common law life, she had five children, and each child on the day of its birthday was deposited on the steps of an orphanage. And the reason why this is important is because Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the man who wrote the social contract, the man who writes a meal, the book on how to educate the K-12 child in the modern age, he is the the man.

Paul Johnson does a book on the modern world and says the philosophers that really were the masterminds behind the world that we live in today are the intellectuals. They wrote the book called The Intellectuals. The number one chapter in that book is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the interesting madman. And he says, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the man behind the way we live in our social systems today. You wanna know why government has grown from 10% of the gross national income to 50% 55% 60% of the gross national income in America over the last three four years we have huge increases you want to know why that's happened because of John Jacques Rousseau the state has become all involved full-orbed in every aspect of our lives it has displaced the family in the modern age because of John Jacque Rousseau and because his concept of the social order has prevailed and he begins with his book a meal and right away we get a clue as to what this guy's all about.

He says the best book written on education is Plato's Republic. And if you read Plato's Republic, you're going to know that Plato configured a world where the guardians would come together for temporary liaisons. Man and woman come together, temporary liaison. And They had the same function in the gymnasium, they exercised in the gymnasium nude, they went to war together nude or without clothes or with clothes or whatever, didn't really matter. Men, women doing the same identical thing in the same world and they came together for temporary liaisons in order to have the child, the child comes out of the womb, pops off, and the experts get them, put them on the conveyor belts, and they're processed through the state education systems.

And that, my friends, is the way Plato said we have to raise children. And Plato also added, no man shall know his son, and no son shall know his father." Very interesting he uses the word know because the Bible uses the word know all the time. Knowledge knowing is all about relationship and God is all about us knowing Him, right? He's all about knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. God is about us having a relationship with Him, God is about us having relationships with each other, but the world is not the world absolutely despises relationships pain tells his brother because of aga bond in the earth and build cities that's the world's system that's a humanist system and fats what play doh configured for us he says the optimum state is where man and women do not get married the family is obliterated no man shall know his son and no son shall know his father and my friends that is the way the world has gone for 200 years wake up and smell it the family is dissolved today because of these men cause Karl Marx comes out with his common manifesto in the 1840s and it's important to understand that caught the Communist Manifesto is the documents the social contract that we have seen worked into most of the developed Western nations, including many of the Eastern nations as well.

And in the Communist Manifesto, one of the most important statements I think is right there is this statement, you've got to abolish home education, replace home education with social. This is the core of it. This is the core application of it. Why? Why does he want to replace home education with social education?

Why is that so important to Karl Marx? Because, he says, my role agenda is abolish the family. You'll read those words in the Communist Manifesto. Please, understand this is the agenda. Smart men have been teaching this for 200 years in universities.

Our systems have been set up to obliterate the family. Let me ask you this, have they been successful? Have they been successful? 40% of kids born without fathers last year, up from 6% in 1960. Have they been successful?

American families the weakest in the Western world. Have they been successful? Half of marriages end in divorce. Have they been successful? For the first time in human history, just this last year, American nuclear families, mom, dad, married, having children together, less than 49% of American households, first time.

Probably in all of human history. It's time right now that somebody figures out what's going on around them. This is an agenda that is directly opposed to God's agenda. What does God say? What does Jesus say?

Jesus says, the two shall become one. The two shall become one and they are no longer two. What therefore God hath joined together, Let no man, let no man, let no Karl Marx, let no Plato, let no Rousseau, let no Betty Friedan, let no institution, let no university, let no theological system put us under This is the issue friends and let me read her Betty Fredanne says and you know what my guess is that a lot of people agree With Betty Fredanne on the statement A woman has got to be able to say and not feel guilty, who am I and what do I want out of life? She mustn't feel selfish if she wants girls of her own outside of her husband and children. 99% of evangelical Christians would say, what's wrong with that?

What's wrong with that? She's got to have goals of her own Of her own Of her own. What does Jesus say? What does Jesus say? What God had joined together let no man put asunder she has to have goals of her own of her own of her own what does Jesus say what does Jesus say what God had joined together let no man put asunder she has to have goals of her own of her own of her own what does Jesus say what God has joined together let no man or woman pass under what does God say friends this is the undoing of the family this is the undoing of the family this is why we speak of icon oh Mia I'm gonna give you a couple of applications that may help you understand where I'm going here.

Oikonomia speaks of economics. So, a Greek word for economics, oikos, is household. Nomia is law or vision. The basic vision of the household is the family. That's economics.

See, economics today is typically thought of as Something that an individual partakes in in a larger economy, but the basic economic unit according to scriptures. I believe and according to about 5, 900 years of world history was not the individual was the family that's why Joseph was feeding his father sheep David was feeding his father sheep Rebecca feeding her father sheep Rachel feeding her father sheep Aquila and Priscilla they were tentmaker they were tent makers together they worked they took dominion of God's world together and as we as we find the creation man day we find the man the woman come together Now we all know that there's there's a one fleshy thing in the lovey-dovey aspect of life and everybody knows about that But they come together to take Dominion don't they like an axe head on an axe handle? You know just had axe head and you're working on taking down a tree How long would it take with just axe head boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom take you what about 20 days take one tree down okay now take the axe handle start whacking on the tree how long would that take to take the tree down a long time now put the head on the handle put the head on the handle how long would it take Not very long see when you put a head on a handle you can actually take Dominion better And that's the way God created households, but that's not the way the modern economic systems have been put together Proverbs 31 the heart of her husband safely trust in her why?

So that he will have no need of spoil no way the heart of her husband safely trusts in her so that she will have no need of spoil is that the way ought to be according to Betty for Dan that's the way it ought to be right because Betty for Dan believes she needs to have goals and more often not their economic goals she needs to have goals separate from her husband and her children the Word of God doesn't bring that out at all the World of God says she's out there to work and she invests and she buys a field and she considers it and she invests in this and that and she manufactures and buys and sells and she does all these things why because the heart of her husband safely trust in her so that he shall have no need to spoil what are we talking about here we're talking about a joint economic vision of which the husband is the head this is the Word of God and let me tell you this some of you saying well Betty Friedan Everything that's happening with girls in college, girls in their careers, our entire system, our economic system is wonderful.

We're not going to do anything to change it. Folks, 70% of young men are not grown up by 30 years of age. Up from 30% in 1970. That's soon to be 95% in the next 20 to 30 years. These young men are not growing up our society is going to be filled with women doing most of the work and the men are going to be sitting around playing video games occasionally smoking peyote and engaging in tribal welfare in the inner cities.

We'll see plenty of that, but we're not going to see men doing much of anything because women are doing what they do and are trained to do what they do. And right now the women to men ratio in the colleges is 57-43. So you know that things are changing dramatically in society out there and if men are not growing up as they don't have jobs, they're paid less than women the same age, they're the only group in the world, in the country right now making less money than they did in 1970, the men are not growing up and the women are taking over in politics, in economics, in the structures of society. That's the direction our system is going, and our civilization is not going to last that long, moving this way. So let's bring a biblical perspective to things and if we do we wind up with an oiko Nomia an economic system that's based in the home in the family.

So if my daughter is accomplished at at medical work and I can tell because she's dissecting frogs at three and She's working on her brother's appendix at nine Then what do I do with this little girl? Well the Bible of course says she is the oikos decibel tail. She's the manager of the home That's Titus chapter 2. She's the manager of the home, but the same time she's a helpmeet for her husband I think there are two mistakes that can be made on this one the first mistake is to give my daughter how to wear an apron 101 for 18 years. Say honey you're going to manage that household and you are going to be the best diaper changer that ever lived.

Okay that's part of the vision. Change in diapers, managing households, part of the vision that's great. But Aquila and Priscilla they were tent makers. There is a unity in the Dominion task as well. Please don't negate that either.

So if my daughter has something in the area of medical science, she loves it, she's got a gift in it, I'm giving her training there. Now the university doesn't understand this. You send her to the university, they'll say, we are gonna train her because she needs to have goals of her own apart from her children or husband she's got to make her 87 K no 124 K a year and pay off her college loans by 54 years of age, and have .7 children, she'll birth four and have three divorces. That, You know that's the vision of the university. They're into the career.

She has her own individual career. She'll get her paycheck of $7, 400 a week, And she gets that from her big boss, the big corporate boss that's being controlled, managed, and owned by the state. And she's only real economic relationship is with the state and the big corporation. I'm sorry, that's not my worldview. It's not my worldview.

If she's going to get some medical training it's so much she's going to get married someday now of course this is normative for most girls they get married there's exceptions to the rule some of them want to vote themselves to the ministry of the church. I understand that I'm saying normatively she gets married What's the purpose of marriage a family unity? Oikonomiyas the two of them become one so she marries a man. He's got a vision for a mission station in africa it turns out there's a lot of mission stations africa that can use a little medical help from time to time there are better and uh... And she's really good at operating on appendixes she'd been doing it since she was nine And and that husband brings that woman into his household and the two Become one and they go out there and take serious dominion of God's earth in an economy a unified economic vision and That my friends is opposing the Marxist socialist Rousseau in platonic state that's been foisted upon our children through their education systems, through their schools, through their universities.

And you know what? This happens all the time. A little fifth grade teacher stands up in the fifth grade class and he says, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And some little girl in the back says sir I want to be in white cost Despotel. Well, he doesn't know Greek.

That's one of his problems But she's been to my presentation. So she says I want to be a home manager I want to I want to be a helpmate for my husband I want to have 12 children for the kingdom of God I want to bring the missions in Africa we're gonna have a mission station we're gonna serve people everywhere with a physical and spiritual needs we want to see God's kingdom come and she says no no no no no no no I was I was asked you that I was asked you what do you want to be when you grow up you know what's he saying how much do you want to make for a living you don't want to be a mechanical engineer or an architect what he's asking is what size is your cubicle going to be trees asking and others the socialist its marks is its purely economic to Marxist are the pure economics is everything the value of everything in terms of economics and power that's not our worldview it's not our worldview we've gotta bring this olecomia back You know I had an opportunity, and there's lots of opportunities for this I'm not again opposing everything I'm planning to do on any of you here But the other day I had an opportunity to exempt myself from Social Security have any of you exempted yourself from Social Security just out of curiosity Okay Okay, I guess I'm the only one then But I had an opportunity, you know I'm a pastor and I get a little income from the church and that was one I guess is one of those left actually the Amish still can do it too.

Someone told me the Amish can still exempt the south of social security. But I had the opportunity, and I had this form in front of me. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't know, should I sign this form? I said, yeah, yeah, of course you're gonna sign it. Because, I'll tell you why, There's a number of reasons why.

I have no interest whatsoever in participating with the status social security program. No interest whatsoever. Number one, I was raised by my own parents. I was educated by my own parents I didn't attend public school and when you've been sitting outside of that socialist system for 45 46 years you look up from time to time and said Barack Obama exactly why do I need you to take care of me in my old age I don't need the government now secondly I'm sitting around me I've been homeschooling my children here for the last 18 years and I realize I've got five Social Security programs sitting right in front of me. And every one of them would be more than happy to take care of us so I signed the form sent off for a couple years ago I was two years ago I was uh...

Concerned that maybe somebody like brock obama hillary kylin might be elected president states and I was thinking if that happens these guys have expressed commitment to obliterate inheritance now the word of god says that a good man leaves inheritance under his children's children the possible I just read this this morning possible said that that the children do not lay up for the parents but the parents for the children. This is normative in a society where parents still have their children. Very rare in America, only 5% of Americans will ever receive anything substantial in inheritance from their parents. Only 5%. But the Word of God is really clear that an inheritance is a good thing.

And a guy who leaves it for his children's children is a good man. This establishes Kevin Swanson's ethics. But then I read from Barack Obama, he's saying George W. Bush exempted inheritance for at least three to four years, and he's going to bring it back. I just read it the other day, he actually did that.

They brought back the $3 million cap on inheritance, and they're going to tax everything above that and you have no idea what's going to happen the next five to ten to fifteen years if they've got a salvage Social Security they got salvage everything else you think that they're going to dig into your pile of inheritance that you've managed to collect after a press the government has taxed it on the income, the government has taxed it on the interest, the government has taxed it on the capital gains. The government has taxed it at every single level. You wind up with $247, 000 measly little dollars in your little hand. The government will take 50, 60, 70% of that and you won't have much to leave for your children's children That's the goal of the status because remember the status the socialists are committed to a grand Izing the state at the expense of the family they will do everything they can to obliterate the relevance of the family and the church God's covenant our relational institutions they will let these things apart for the sake because they are utterly utterly utterly committed to the growth of the state and they've been doing it non-stop since 1913 back up to 1865 they have been committed to this France so what am I gonna do I'm faced with this decision we have a little bit that we have saved so far and we do not want the government to erode this.

I came up with an idea. It was called the gift tax exemption. Eleven thousand dollars a year per child can be given to a child without the child being taxed for that gift. I started doing the math. Eleven thousand dollars times twenty years times five children I got a great idea maybe I can beat Barack Obama or Hillary or Bill or E or whoever gets elected in the year 2024 so two years ago my wife and I got together and we wrote our first check.

$5, 000 to Emily Swanson. We decided to peel off our inheritance year by year. We introduced Emily first year. Now this year's Rebecca's year. She's going to be cut in, she's 14 now.

When Bethany is 14, that would be in two years, we're cutting her in on it. And Bethany, we're going to cut her in on it. We're going to be adding as much as we can to them. And I want to work this out so by the time they get married, they'll be able to pay off their homes hopefully in full. As best as we can, hopefully their husbands to be will be working right now.

By the way, please get your sons working, everybody here. Because we don't want our children slaves to dead as well if possible. So debt free on their homes by the time they get married. I also will be saving a little bit on the side for my son. I'm not giving him anything on the front end because I want him to get out there like every boy should and work and cut a piece of the rock out and develop some dominion work himself.

And by the time he gets married, his wedding day, I would sure like to give him a big ol some so here's the deal here's the deal I began to do all this and I remember evening was right around the time or at the first check about what am I doing a psychology together said okay guys here's what we did we um... We signed up so Security so the government's not going to take care of us in our old age We're also giving away all our money to you And so by the time you get married we're not gonna have anything So I turn to Matthew 15 now and let me tell you what the word of God has to say about this Because in Matthew chapter 15 says that the Pharisees had a kurban system they'd put in place where a man could write off all his money to a social security program. It was really cool. It was a church-based social security program. He would just write that whole thing off to the church.

And he was no longer responsible to take care of his parents, honor his parents in their old age and Jesus said yes scumbags you have made the law of God of none effect by your tradition I told you God told you in his word with infinite authority you must honor Your mother and father and no word of man, no institution of man shall ever, ever, ever abrogate what God has written. I didn't preach quite that hard. But, I just said, honeys, we're coming to your house to live with you. And We love this stuff. We love our children even more than Barack and Social Security.

Can you believe that? Can any of you believe that? I love my children even more than the Social Security program. I love my children. I love to be with them.

They love to be with me. My wife is just sitting around figuring out which girl we're going to be living with or boy, whatever. She's always saying we're going to go live with Emily because she's such a great cook and you know we're kind of planning it all out but you know guys here's the deal I have come face to face with the antithesis and I I hate it and I love my God and His Word with all my heart. And I will do everything that I can in my own family to reverse the trends of that evil man Rousseau who has been working in all these institutions through the tune of trillions and trillions of dollars, hundreds of years of indoctrination, to raise systems up that will dissolve my family and ensure that my grandchild will divorce at a rate of 55% and shack up at a rate of 75 and have children out of wedlock to the extent of 89 percent. And that's unacceptable for me!

Amen, somebody! Amen. Let's apply the Word of God! Brothers, you're up against hundreds of years, trillions of dollars of tyranny. We've been trained, your pastors, your churches, Your institutions have been trained to think a certain way.

It's time right now to assume the faith to reconstruct an entire social system. And here's the challenge for you. You came to a conference and you found out you couldn't just go to a church that says family integrated on the bulletin and you're there. You thought it was gonna be easy, didn't you? I'm telling you that unless we reconstruct the entire social system, We will not salvage the family in the year 2045.

We won't. Radical, radical, radical problems call for radical solutions. Now I don't know how all this is going to work out in your life, and which step you've got to take first, and then the second step and the third step, but I will tell you this. Every step you take is going to be done in faith. You step out into thin air and you just do stuff.

You make decisions to revive the oneness of the family socially, economically, ecclesiastically. Of course, you're trying to do that in the church as well. Let me just say this really, really quick. My book, The Second Mayflower, is all about this topic. It's a modest proposal for the reconstruction of your entire social system in the next generation or two.

A modest proposal. May God help us in this endeavor well let me close with five implications five practical implications because and I've talked about a lot of philosophy today But you just gotta get something to go home with let me just give you a few ideas number one if You are a body if you are a one your family is a unit start acting like one Treat your children this way Travel together on the Pilgrim Pathway. This is why I like the second book of Pilgrim's Progress better than the first. You say that one more time. I like the second book of Pilgrim's Progress better than the first.

We have a study guide on pilgrims progress we do both books for a reason because John Bunyan was growing his maturity his understanding of the oikon amia the economic system the oneness of the family in the first book it's individual Christianity right second book mom and children go together mom and children go together we are a family together my father told me something that's very very good I was raised in a great reformed Baptist family my dad loved God my dad had 40 minutes of devotion every morning with us he read us the Word of God we learned the Psalms on the island we sat around read George Whitefield's journals and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Bunyan's Holy War. My dad has read through all the Puritan paperbacks from Baker Book House and we just loved the classics together. And God gave us a great, great situation when our father discipled us all those years. And at the same time, when the family was falling apart, the Christian family in America was coming apart the seams my dad was the radical there's nobody doing anything quite like what my dad was doing it was crazy stuff I didn't know anybody who was reading Puritan paperbacks and reformed doctor of predestination at 13 years of age and listening to Al Martin tapes and transcribing them word for word on rickety typewriters for hours on end when I was 13.

I didn't know anybody who had this dad who would sit us down and have us listen to these great sermons by Al Martin every morning. And he had us take out notes I typed binders of hundreds of sermons By the time I was 15 or 16 I knew nobody who had this kind of a raising my father said something That was really important on all of this. He said we always expected our children to walk with God That's really important we always expected our children to walk with God It was almost like we were on the moving walkway in the airport. Have you ever been with one of those and with your family and you're all coming together? Say, okay, let's move on the moving walkway together on the Pilgrim pathway.

You know, play this game when you go home here, we fly out of here, you know, and then come together and then one of your little boys is gonna go oh let me try running backwards and he's doing this because he can't he can't oppose the trend that keeps pulling him the direction that you were going this is the vision This is the vision the Bible says you do not call your little children pagans you call them hagios Holy, I don't even need to go on the baptism thing here. I'm friends. I just say just be biblical Okay, the other things that debates gonna last us 28 280 2, 000 years But the Bible says call your children haggios. Call your children haggios. Does anybody call your children haggios?

Hey, little holy ones, come here. All you little holy ones, come together here. All my little haggios, come on over. Let's have a little family worship time together, little haggios. 1 Corinthians 7 calls your children holy.

Then call them that! That's a necessary implication. That's biblical. Start calling your children the holy ones moreover Joshua chapter 24 It's one of the most interesting verses in all the Bible Joshua says I want you to think about this. This is gonna take you probably about a year or two to chew on this one Joshua says choose you this day Whom you will serve the gods of the Egyptians or the gods of the Amorites done That's the only choice he gave them Yeah pagans if you want to be a pagan you choose to stay whom you're gonna serve the gods of Egyptians or the gods of the Amorites as for me and my house We don't get to choose Amen yeah, amen We don't get to choose pagans choose This idea that you contain 10 train your children to choose all the time If little junior chooses Jesus and we're all gonna be so happy you need to choose Jesus someday, honey You need to choose Jesus someday.

Oh wait when you choose Jesus. We're waiting for junior to choose Jesus You know what? The Bible doesn't bring any of that out. The Bible says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We have one choice.

We have one block on the multiple choice test. One block. Jesus. Check. I don't take my children to a 40-story building and say honey you got a choice you can walk off go sploosh or go back down the stairs with the rest of us they don't get a choose it's an expectation we're walking together and here's the other thing the Bible doesn't say to whip up a conversion experience in your child now there is one Experience a man had in the word where a man is called to apostolic ministry the Apostle Paul But for the rest of us We have a command It's called Deuteronomy 6 7 teach your children my words as you walk by the way as you rise up as you lie down disciple your children in the Word of God people get all crazy with his idea do I teach my children to obey before I teach them to believe they're teaching to repent before believed as repentance come after belief for those works come after belief or before repentance or on and on and on brothers they are distinct but not separate.

This is basic basic reform teaching. Faith and works are distinct but not separate. They are unity. Teach them to believe and repent and obey every single day and that's all you say come back to me say how do I know when my child started to believe so I can know when to start to teach them to obey so I can start to teach them. The Word of God says just go out there and teach them to believe, to trust, to fear God, to obey His commandments, to repent.

Mix it all up in one big thing and give it to them and say you got to do that every day of your life. Boom! That's it, brothers! It doesn't really matter when they began Now every man matters that they began But the lot of times we have no idea when the regeneration Occurred and they got the big R on the forehead we get in all these debates on this kind of stuff. I'm sorry that's all mystery.

It's like the wind it blows, you know where it comes from and the effects it makes, but you have no idea of anything else about it, so just be satisfied that God is going to work in the meantime. There are about a hundred references in the Bible to the growth of the Word of God in a little child or an adult as being like a seed in the soil if I ever do a systematic theology class I'm gonna go get a plant I'm gonna put it right smack in the middle of the table and say that's your systematic system office systematize that get back theologian when when was this plant regenerated teacher somewhere between germination and fruit bearing per the parable the solar right because there's a lot of plants that germinate in the soil and they don't bear fruit but where's the plant regenerated somewhere between the planting of the seed and fruit bearing boom that's it so you think But I really want to know exactly exactly exactly where and when and how and on yet don't get to know that your job as A parent is to work for 18 years as a good farmer This is what makes it really hard because you want to see instant free you say okay, honey I just want you to throw the pinecone under the fire.

I just want you to walk forward in the church I just want to put some water on the hand and be baptized. I just want a raise of a hand I just want to see something to prove to me that I did my job and it's over I will go watch television for the next twenty years of my life I'm sorry that's not the way child discipleship happens he said why did you turn child evangelism because I don't like it I like child the softish Put your hand to the plow and you teach and teach and teach and water water water water that plant. And after 18-20 years I'll let you look up and we'll see if you got any fruit yet. And brothers and sisters you know exactly what I'm talking about here, don't you? Any of you have done that?

I thought my child was saved at 10. I won't tell you which one. I was so sure, saved at 10. Then we got all this rebellion and problems at twelve and then I went to work again and then at fourteen saved again oh hell of a lot he saved again and then I got a rebellion bad rebellion now at six days like oh no more rebellion I guess I can't watch TV for another two years you know and then I gotta go back and work again so I go work work work work bad about sixty is like a little more I guess I got a lot of people that do you know and I got a lot of work again a little more work work work and I got big problems that I don't want to do anymore cuz you're gonna get an idea of what I'm talking about here. But I'm seeing God working.

And praise be to God something's happening. It's just like the wind though, it blows. And the word is planted and it's watered and over 18 19 20 years you look up at 25 28 they've got their own and they're discipling them I'll let you quit then you can go on and work on somebody else but see this is this is the discipleship that the Bible calls us to let me move on quickly to the next implication that is love your neighbor as yourself and I want to call it a radical love A lot of people wonder why you walk into a homeschooling organization or a home discipleship organization you find out people talk about courtship all the time. And I'll tell you why. It confuses a lot of people.

I'll tell you why. The reason why homeschoolers tended to be the ones who were going for the courtship stuff early on not not exclusively but early on they were doing it was because They had been called to discipleship and they had done heavy-duty discipleship Relationship building over many years. So you have a father who's been to these seminars and he's he's discipling He's grappling with that heart 724 over 16 17 18 years And he's been through that work and has loved his daughter to the extent that he he's done the discipleship And by the way, we live in a time where three out of ten born-again parents consider Only three out of ten born-again parents consider the salvation of their children an important parental emphasis That's Barna who did that research? Only three out of ten Now we asked Barna at a leadership conference a couple years ago how many Christian parents do family worship. He said only one in ten have ever tried it, ever tried it.

Only one in ten Christian parents have ever tried doing any family worship. You know, Deuteronomy 6, 7, Ephesians 6, 4, 1 Thessalonians 2, 11, that kind of stuff. Only three out of ten, or one out of ten, had ever tried it. But only three out of ten Consider the salvation of the children important parental emphasis twice as many say that a good education is more important than a living walking Relationship with Jesus Christ twice as many want a good education for their children. This is the society with them personally I think it has to do with a lack of love we've got to love our children we've got to love our God with all our heart soul mind and strength isn't that what the Shema tells us in Deuteronomy 6 7 love your God with all your heart soul mind and strength so much that you will you will commit to discipling your children every day as you walk by the way as you rise up as you lie down then as you love God so much you gotta tell your children about this God you love And this is the driving force that ought to be in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Americans I travel the country one one reason why I'm doing all these family conferences homeschool conferences.

I am trying to secure more American born-again parents to love God They love the Lord so they will disciple their children as they walk by the way, as they rise up and as they lie down. This is the goal. So if you have a parent that does this, oftentimes They're interested in courtship. They're all ears. They've been pouring themselves in emotionally and they love their child so much for 16 or 17 or 18 years.

You think they're going to toss around their 17-year-old daughter to the first loser who comes to the door with a bone in his mouth speaking in monosyllabic words to watch a daughter on a date now. That guy's going to say take a hike buddy or bring him in and disciple him for a few years maybe and say okay now we can talk. We just don't love enough. You know people ask these what does the word of God have to say about courtship? Very little.

Vow veto power belongs to the Father. If he loves his daughter he'll use it. If he loves his daughter he will use it what does the word of god had to say about courtship I'll tell you what the word I said my courtship. Love your neighbor as yourself. And people who hear that go, Yeah, I kissed my daughter on the cheek about five years ago.

Done that. And then I went and dropped her off at richmond high it was a christian father who did that no chaperone the most dangerous high school in america far more dangerous far more arrests in any given day than he has ever experienced in his own workplace what kind of unliving wicked father would have done that to his daughter but for dangerous for the rest of the day that I expected place what kind of unloving or a cat what of her who'd since stinking all of his daughter one little bit now one And brothers and sisters, I'm telling you, that Christian father is you and me. We are in the same country together. We share the same Christian faith together. We don't love our neighbor very much at all.

Not very much at all. May God open your eyes to see. Because this is the beginning, this is the very beginning right here as it's preached in your churches in your own life. This is the very, very, very beginning of where God by His grace opens your eyes to see that love seeks not her own. And you are that selfish, wicked, hateful Father.

It's you, it's me. And then as you listen to this message, you know you're standing under the cross of Jesus Christ, don't you? I mean we are so far away from the love of God. We've so hardly even scratched the surface on loving our own daughters. Some of us have raised our daughters with the expectation, the Judah expectation that he would have a husband for Tamar.

And then he commits incest and then Judah says, my defrauding of my daughter-in-law was worse than my incest. And in the homeschooling movement there are fathers who've brought up this expectation of their daughters that they're gonna look out for a good husband. They're gonna make sure that she's taken care of. And they are being slothful, they're not coming around, they're defrauding their daughters year after year after year after year. Do you really love your daughters as you ought to?

Do we love our children as we ought to? You know the answer to that. But in the cross We see a God who loved us. Amen? A God who saw the miserable wretches that we can now see ourselves to be.

And He sent His Son, His only Son, His Holy Son, His transcendent One, to take on human flesh, to die on that wretched, bloody cross. He loved us so much. Now we can love Him. And now we can love our daughters too. This message is for that father whose daughter was torn apart at Richmond High But it's just as much for you.

Let me say one last thing, last implication at a time. Please read the word of God to your children as you walk by the way as you rise up as you lie down. I encourage you to family worship. The Bible commands it. But the Bible commands you to exhortation.

Exhort your children, your families. Men, This is the core curriculum. This is core for all education. Your children have to know the Word of God better than they know their algebra. They need to know every psalm, all the Proverbs, the book of Genesis, inside and out, better than they know their geography, their history, their spelling.

They've got to know this stuff. So my encouragement, read the word of God to your children each day. Exhort them in the word. That is practically apply these things to their lives. That's what exhortation is.

Don't just read the word of God. Look up and say, children, This is what the Word of God says to us. It calls us to repentance in this area. Let's embrace the cross of Christ ourselves here. This is what shepherding is.

God calls every father to do shepherding. I don't have time to do a whole thing on family worship here, but we've got some excellent family resources at our resource table. Let me recommend to you our family Bible study series. We put together these things for families who would like good expository lessons for their children along with some great exhortations, some application, and some discussion questions that will help you drive these truths into the hearts of your children. So take a look at some of our resources.

This is the core, I believe. This is where it starts. You've got to teach the Word of God to your children. Thank you very much. You've been so kind to listen to me.

Thanks. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the Word of God, and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family-integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org. You