Dr. Joel Beeke's sermon, 'How Men Should Lead Their Families as Prophets, Priests, and Kings,' emphasizes the biblical paradigm for Christian parenting and leadership in the family. Drawing from Deuteronomy 6 and Job 1, Beeke outlines the roles of prophet, priest, and king as essential to nurturing families in faith. As prophets, fathers are called to teach their children with passion and engage in daily family worship, embodying the teachings of the Bible in their lives. The priestly role involves sacrificial love, especially towards one's spouse, and intercessory prayer, following Job's example of praying continually for his children. The kingly role requires defending the family from spiritual and societal threats, such as improper use of technology and unwise relationships. Discipline is presented as an act of love, aimed at guiding children towards repentance and maturity. Beeke stresses the importance of a parent's example, prayer, and consistent, loving discipline, and encourages parents to seek forgiveness and strive towards being prophets, priests, and kings in their homes.

Okay, that was a good time of fellowship and a wonderful meal. Let's read from Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 7. Verses four through seven. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children, and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." And then turn with me please to Job chapter 1.

Job chapter 1. You remember at the beginning of Job that Job's children were together in their houses and seven sons and they called for their three sisters to come and to eat and to drink with them. And we read in verse 5, it was so Job 1 verse 5, it was so when the days of their feasting were gone about that Job sent and sanctified them and rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, it may be, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. And then these words, thus did Job continually.

So it wasn't a one-off. Thus did Job continually. Let's pray. Gracious God, as we look at our duty, especially as fathers, but by implication also as mothers, to nurture our families in the admonition and fear of the Lord. As prophets and priests and kings, Give us wisdom to use this biblical paradigm in a way that does good for our children, brings glory to thy name, and confirms thy covenant mercies through office bearing.

Help us to understand this as perhaps never before and bless this time together in Jesus' name, amen. Well, you know perhaps that in the time of the Reformation there are three significant families of Reformed Confessions. There is the less known, at least in our circles, family called the Swiss Family. Continental Europe, especially from Switzerland, under the influence of men like Heinrich Bullinger, who was just as famous by the way as John Calvin was in his own day, in the writing of the first Helvetic and the second Helvetic confession. They're still used by some Reformed churches, particularly in Eastern Europe today.

And then there is, of course, the so-called three forms of unity in more northern continental Europe, used particularly in the Netherlands, Hevela, but also in Germany and other places, which consists of the Belgian Confession of Faith, 1561, the Heidelberg Catechism, 1563, and the Canons of Dort, 1619. And then you have the British Isles confessions of Presbyterianism, we call it the UK confessions, that particularly had a huge impact in England and Scotland, but also in Ireland and Wales, called the Westminster Standards. The last group in the 1640s, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism and the larger catechism. Now only one of those eight standards was written as a preaching tool, written to be used in public proclamation to help people understand, and that is the Heidelberg Catechism. And in our Dutch background churches that I hail from, the Catechism is a very, very precious document because it's so preachable.

As We ground each sermon in the actual text of scripture, of course. We use the Catechism to instruct our people in all the major doctrines of the faith. Now the Catechism has a section from what we call Lord's Day 8 to Lord's Day 22, 15 Lord's Days, expounding the Apostles Creed, the basic core doctrines of the Christian faith. And when it comes to Lord's Day 12, there's a section there on the names of Jesus that are found in the creed. Lord, Jesus, and then Christ.

And in question 31, we have this wonderful description of the name Christ, meaning anointed, and it explains how he's anointed to be our chief prophet, our merciful priest, and our everlasting king. And at that point, we expect the catechism to simply go on to the next name, which is Lord, in Lord's Day 13, and they do. But surprisingly, there is a question added in between. A rather surprise question, because all these Lord's days in this section deal with the names of Christ. And that's question 32, and it reads like this, But why are you called a Christian?

See, we just talked about the name Christ, and the word Christian literally means a little Christ or someone like Christ, someone being conformed to Christ. It's really what it means when you're a Christian. You're in the process of becoming more like Christ. And then the answer is, basically, if I put it in my own words, that we are Christians because we are followers of the Christ who is prophet, priest, and king. So we are restored into the prophetical, priestly, and kingly office when we become Christians so that we can be more like Jesus and follow him and become office bearers.

That is bearing office on behalf of another for the sake and well-being of others. That's what the word office means. And of course in the Christian life what that means is that you are called to be an office bearer on behalf of God in various relationships of life for the well-being of those entrusted to you by God, which we're going to take up this afternoon just in one dimension that is in relationship to your children. So It's like this. Just give you a quick example.

My brother, when he was 19 years old, came to me one day and he said, I can tell you what life is all about and I can say it in one word. And I said, well, what in the world, one word, what are you talking about? What word? He goes, service. I go, what?

Explain that. He goes, well, it's quite simple. He says, God created us, he's 19 years old now, God created us as prophets, priests, and kings to rightly know Him, to live in righteousness, and to walk in holiness in paradise. And we lost that image of God that was in us in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. In that narrow sense, we lost it completely even though we keep it in some degrees, though it's distorted in the wider sense.

But we lost that knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and when we get converted, we get it back. And now we become prophets, priests, and kings to serve the Christ who is our supreme prophet, supreme priest, supreme king to save us. And so we go out as little prophets, priests, and kings, little Christians to serve others. So in paradise, Adam served God, he served his wife Eve, and he served creation, dressing the garden and keeping it. So we are called as Christians to serve those entrusted to us.

And I looked at him and I said, yeah, sounds pretty good to me. Now, 50 some years later, I say, that sounds Very good to me. That's what our lives are to be once we're saved. We're to be servants of the servant of the Father and what Jesus does for us is prophet, priest, and king, though we cannot merit anything. Of course, the parallel breaks down in some places.

But we are called now to be prophets, priests, and kings to him. And so that's what question 32 picks up on. Why are you called a Christian? And then notice this. Because I am a member of Christ by faith.

And so I'm partaker of his anointing to his threefold office. That so, and here it comes, I may confess his name. That's my prophetic anointing. And present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him, that's my priestly anointing. And also that with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this life and afterwards reign with him eternally over all creatures, that's my kingly anointing.

So what I'm suggesting to you is that wherever we go in life, if we're true Christians, we're called to be prophets, priests, and kings. Or for you women, prophetesses and, I don't know what you do with the priest's word, but queens for the king's word. But by implication, you see, you're called to bear office in this threefold way as well. So as I speak particularly to the men, the fathers in the home in these few moments, I think you women just listen with discernment and you'll be able to take up 80, 90% of this for yourself as well. But it's particularly placed upon the man as the head of the home.

Now we could do this with regard to our work, we could do this with regard to our relationship in the church, with church membership and church office bearers. We could do it in relationship to employers over employees. We could do it in relationship to political leaders over citizens. In all the relationships of life, the Bible teaches us we are in a framework of authority. And in all those positions of leadership over others, we're called to be prophets, priests, and kings as Christians in a fatherly way, in a Christ-like way.

So it's natural now to say, isn't it, that when it comes to leading your children in the home, and remember all things belong to Christ, So ultimately your children are your children, but they're not really owned by you. They belong to the Lord. He has a claim on them. He's a covenant-keeping God, He's a claim on them. They have to all be born again.

But you see, you are called to rear your children in every step of the way as you believe, based on the Bible, that God would have you lead them because you're leading them in the place of God. Your children are loaned to you by God. And so you're to lead them as prophets, as priests, and as kings to the glory of God, praying that God will bless your efforts and that one day, they too, and your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren, to a thousand generations, to those that love him, will be standing on the right side of Jesus Christ. So God uses the means of faithful office-bearing parenting to bless the seed, your seed, his own seed, from generation to generation. What a blessing it is to be a Christian father and to feel the weight of this calling to be a prophet, a priest, and a king to your own children.

Now what does that mean? Well first of all it means you need to be saved because I'm a member of Christ by faith and partaker of his anointing. That's the preface to this answer. That's a given. You can't be a prophet, priest, and king to your children if you're not saved yourself.

So I'm going to assume that right now for this particular talk anyway, that you are a father who wants to raise your children as a prophet, priest, and king, and you wanna know how to do it. That's a big assumption, but we've only got so much time here. So, what does it mean, first of all, then, to be a prophet? Well, some people think that to be a prophet means to foretell the future. That was a side calling of the prophets.

The word prophet in the Old Testament actually means to boil over, to have a message inside of you that you cannot contain. It has to come out. Now, The text in Jeremiah 20, verse 9, puts it this way, God's word was in my heart as a burning fire shot up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay. Amos puts it this way, the Lord God has spoken, the lion hath roared, who can but prophesy? And you see the point is that when you're a prophet to your children, you just cannot contain yourself.

You just have to speak to them about the truths and the things of God. You have to bring them the word of God. Not because you have to do it, but you have to do it because you cannot not do it. It's inside of you, It's burning. You've got to instruct your children.

It's not just a must of the duty, but it's something you want to do. And you see, that's why Moses says here in Deuteronomy 6, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength and you therefore naturally will teach your children diligently, diligently talking of them When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. That's a Hebraic expression that means every day. How often do you lie down? How often do you rise up?

How often do you sit in your house? These are everyday activities. It's just a quaint, Hebraic way of saying, I need to teach my children, you need to teach your children, every single day with diligence, with excitement, with energy, with passion, with tears, with these are the glorious truths of what life is all about contained in these 66 books in one book, which the Puritans called the library of the Holy Ghost. So bring these truths to your children. That's what it means to be a prophet to them.

Now, how do you do that? Number one then you teach with passion. You teach with passion. And I just want to tell you, my dad was just a tremendous example of that. You know, I sometimes wondered if he cared about my physical daily life at all.

He never asked me any questions about it. My mother did all the time, so she made up for his lack. But boy, when it came to our soul, Whew, my dad was right there, always talking to us, always talking about how the Holy Spirit works in the soul. And we would ask him questions, and he'd set his Pilgrim's Progress down as he was reading it to us, or the Bible, and he'd start teaching us, and then soon the tears would be streaming down his face. He'd teach us diligently the things of the word of God.

What a treasure that was. Till today, right while I'm in the act of preaching, I mean right now, I just have to hold back. I see my father sitting there. I hear words coming from his mouth, things he repeated to me, things he'd say. I want to write them with an iron pen on your heart.

And he did. It just comes out of me. It's in me. You see, because he taught me diligently. He didn't get more excited about some stupid ballgame than he did about Jesus Christ.

He was excited about Jesus Christ. He was excited about the truth of God. He cared deeply that I would know the work of the Holy Spirit of my soul unto salvation. My dad illustrated what J.C. Ryle so beautifully said, soul love is the soul of all love.

Soul love is the soul of all love. Soul love is the soul of all love. And once that's inside of you, you cannot help but teach your children diligently. So that's number one, teach with passion. Number two, you have to teach as God's authorized steward.

Fathers, Ephesians 6, 4, provoked not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is an imperative, this is not just a little advice. You don't say to your children, do you mind if I teach you something? Or is it okay if I share a few things with you? Yes, you're sharing things with them, but This is a command.

This is not optional. You must do these things. And so rather you should say to your children, children, come now for family worship today, and sit by your father, and God has given me this task of teaching you. I must follow his commands. So churches, good books, they can all assist you, they can supplement your effort, but no church ever takes your place as the primary teacher of your children, not even the pastor.

The pastor assists you, assists your children, but you are the primary responsible person to teach your children. That's what Moses is saying. So he teaches God's authorized steward. Third, you teach as prophet foundationally through family worship. Now if that's all you do, you're gonna fall short.

So teach like a saint in family worship, and you'll live like a devil in the home, you're gonna defeat all your family worship. So the rest of your life must flow out of this family worship, be consistent with this family worship so that your children see you're bona fide, that you're not a hypocrite. But family worship is the undergirding plank of fulfilling your prophetical office to your children. Because every day there's a stated time where you are going to teach your children what that particular chapter in the Bible that you're reading together with your family that day, what are the major takeaways of that chapter? You're gonna talk with your children about that.

That's what you're called to do. Joshua 24, verse 15 puts it this way, as for me and my house, we will worship the Lord. That was a daily worship in the time of Israel. And in the Reformation Church, in the Puritan Church, all the way up until about 50 years ago, Christians regularly engaged Christian families in family worship, and their father led that family worship. It's only in the last couple generations that this has fallen by the wayside.

It's a tragedy. One of my greatest callings in life is to restore this around the world. That's why I speak on family worship so much. I want every father who's a Christian to be engaging in family worship every day. And to do the four things the Bible says you need to do, 1 Timothy 3, you need to be reading the scriptures every day with your children.

Number two, you need to be praying every day with your children. Jeremiah says, the family that doesn't pray together, think about this, will bring down upon them the fury of God. The fury, the anger of God's bad enough. The fury of God? Puritan Thomas Brooks said, a family without prayer is like a home without a roof exposed to all the storms of heaven.

You've got to pray every day with your family. Your children need to hear you, Father. And you need to train them to pray. You need to hear them pray. You need to give them instruction.

They need to hear your wife pray. They need to feel the godliness, the pleading of their parents with Almighty God for their salvation. So you need to read the Bible, you need to pray, and then you need to instruct your children. They need to hear the reality of this chapter from your own lips. Home is where reality takes place.

Home is where the rubber hits the road. They need to hear it from your lips, otherwise they'll just tune out the reading of the Bible chapter. And then fourth, singing. Psalm 118.15. Daily they were singing in the tents of the righteous.

And the Puritans would say, always do singing at the end because singing lasts the longest on the memory. It will go through the day with you. Be that as it may. These are the four major tasks. And I've said at the marriage seminar, and I've said it before when I've been out here, is that the greatest problem of these four is fathers are so busy today, it's so hard to find a half hour to an hour to prepare, say in the morning for family worship later, really study that chapter.

I mean, that would be the ideal. Study that chapter and know what you're gonna say to your children in the evening. Fathers usually try to wing it, and then they get stuck. They read Ezekiel 44, they don't know what to say to their kids, and even we ministers don't know what to say to our kids when we read Ezekiel 44. So what some of us have done, we've got together, and we spent five years writing a family worship Bible guide to help you, Father.

So you just read these two major takeaways each day to your children after you read the Bible and they end in a question and then you discuss the question and you automatically are discussing the major things in that chapter. And as I said before, when you do the whole Bible that way, over a couple years, you actually end up talking about every subject under the sun with your children. That is a sure way to fulfill your duty humbly, simply, beautifully of training your children as a prophet day by day in your home. It's like a constant dripping into their lives. Every day they get to hear something from dad, and mom supporting them, mom jumping in.

They get to hear every day something from their parents about biblical wisdom in some area of life. And then number four, we teach not only by, through family worship, but we also must teach by example, by example. Now, what that means is, there's an old Dutch saying that goes like this, our talk talks but our walk talks more than our talk talks. Okay? Our talk talks but our walk talks more than our talk talks.

So as I said, if you don't buttress your talk in family worship with a walk that authenticates what you're teaching your children, you're going to defeat yourself. So your walk, your walk of life is in itself a prophetical teaching to your children. I like to put it this way, your walk, dear father, dear mother, your walk is the second most important book your children will ever read. First is the Bible, but the second is your life. Teach by example.

And then five, teach by sharing your life. That's where, again, where my dad excelled, and I just thought all dads did this actually when I grew up and I found out when I became a minister that hardly any dads do this but my dad would share his experiences with us. He talked to us about how he was brought under the conviction of sin when he was 28 years old and how he was brought to Christ when he was 29, and how the Lord brought him into the church as a deacon when he was 31, and how he became an elder when he was 32, and how he struggled with a call to the ministry and then realized, no, he was just to be a ruling elder for the rest of his life. We heard about experiences he had as a carpenter and as he had running a fruit stand, how the Lord helped him, how the Lord humbled him. It made Christianity to be vitally real because we could feel the reality of it in the experience of our debt.

So, and it doesn't have to be your own experiences only, but Share with them the experiences of all the Christians, Christians in your church, Christians in church history, Christians in the Bible. Share life stories. Let the doctrines hang onto the, drape over the doctrines these wonderful grapes of Eshkol, these wonderful things you find in the Bible, from stories in the Bible that give illustrations and lessons for life, and do that with church history as well in your own life and people around you. And then finally, teach them also for holistic maturity. We read in Luke 2.52 that Jesus says that he increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

You don't only teach your children in family worship, very spiritual lessons. You also teach them how to live. You teach them social graces. You teach them that a well-trained mind unaccompanied by basic manners or culture is a blunt sword. Our children should show respect to older people, kindness to their peers, compassion to people younger than they are.

If you expect your children to behave well but you haven't taught them proper etiquette, you will set them up for failure in society. You teach them about physical things. You teach them about their bodies, that they're gifts from God. You teach them on different subjects how to respect the rules of health and treat their bodies with honor. You teach them that they need a certain amount of sleep, a healthy diet, plenty of exercise.

You know, it goes on and on. You teach them a proper attitude to sports in life, not making an idol of it, and yet enjoying participation in sports for good exercise because it also promotes teamwork and leadership and perseverance and so on. So you, just like Jesus, you teach your children so they may increase in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with man. So that's your prophetical office, in a nutshell. What about the priestly office?

I'm just going to mention two things here. There's many things I could mention. First of all, let me make clear that you don't sacrifice for your children in the sense that Jesus did. You don't go out and bleed and die for them. But that doesn't mean there's no sacrificial dimension to your priestly office.

The priestly office has three main roles. Your Sacrificial dimension, the intercessory dimension, Christ intercedes for us, and then the blessing dimension. Through his sacrifice and his intercession, he blesses us. Well, When it comes to parenting, one of the most effective sacrificial dimensions as a father is to love your wife like crazy. So your children can see that you're madly in love with her, you cherish her, you relish her, and you're willing to sacrifice for your wife.

And that gives children a sense of security, it gives them an understanding of what marriage is all about, that it's reflective of the relationship of Christ and the church. So it's actually a priestly function of your office bearing to love your wife, Just as Ephesians 5 says you're to do. And we talked about that at the marital seminar. Remember, to love your wife absolutely. Ephesians 5.25, you're to love her purposely.

Verse 26 and 27A, you're to love her realistically, verse 27B, you're to love her tenderly, verses 28 and 29 is you love your own body. You see, one of the very best things you can do as a father is to love your wife so that your children grow up with a very healthy view of marriage and see marriage as a beautiful Christ Church pattern where you love your wife like Christ loves a church. You never do it perfectly, of course, and children will understand that. But for the main, that's the trajectory of your marriage. And they see this wonderful, wonderful Christ-like spirit when you're around your wife.

They see you embrace your wife. And when you come home, when you go away, they see you kiss your wife, and they just know that mom and dad are crazy in love. That's a powerful example, powerful. Now my kids, our kids, I should say, our kids, they would actually rate our hugs when they'd see us hug. They'd say, that was a G rated hug.

That was a PG, oh, that was an R rated hug. Now we were careful not to go over the line, don't get me wrong. But they would talk like that and they'd kinda look away like they were embarrassed, oh no, here it goes again. But you know what? They loved it.

They absolutely loved it. Because they had the security of knowing. And all three of them, by the grace of God, didn't just only marry God-fearing people, but all three of them understood that marriage is a huge blessing. I think they got it more from our example really than our conversation, even though we talked about it as well. But the example here is so important.

Sacrificial love for your wife. And zero tolerance, zero tolerance for any disrespect to your wife from their part. I always say to the kids, this is a huge moral infraction. You have any idea what your mother's done for you? The time before you were born, she carried you for nine months.

She changed more diapers than I could count. You can never, my dad used to say that to us too, you can never repay your mother for everything she's done to you, never. So that kind of respect, that kind of attitude, you see, you have to show also you're willing to sacrifice just out of love for your wife in one way or another. You want to please her. You want to delight in her.

And you want your children to appreciate their mother immensely. So That's one role of your priestly dimension. The other one, of course, is to pray for your children, to be an intercessor like Christ is. And I love this thought, I just love this thought. You know, we can never pray enough for our kids, of course, we all come short.

But Jesus is praying for you, dear believer, every single second he ever lives to make intercession for us, Hebrews 725. That's true corporately of the millions of his people on earth at any given moment, but it's also true individually because he has the infinite capacity to treat every child of God as if it were his only child. Now if you've ever seen a mother who's very powerful in love and she's got, well I have a brother with 13 children, and my sister-in-law is amazing. She's an amazing disciplinarian, but she's also amazingly loving. Somehow she makes all those 13 kids just feel like all her love is focused just on each one of them.

I don't know how she does it, but it's powerful love, powerful love. And she takes them on their lap, and she just rubs their back, and she just conveys love every step of the way. And you see, that kind of love and that kind of thoughtfulness is constant in a mother. And the more we can translate that into intercessory prayer and pray like Job did every day for our children, intercede for them, we are fulfilling our priestly office to our children. Now notice when it comes to Job, he interceded, I'll just give you four or five quick thoughts about this.

Number one, he interceded for his children out of reverence and godly fear. Out of reverence and godly fear. You know, the more I study this passage of Job and I've preached on it before, I'm convinced, I'm convinced that Job's kids weren't doing anything wrong here. Doesn't say they were getting drunk, It just says they went to each other's house and they were feasting together. But Job said, it may be, and say it was, it may be that they've sinned in their heart against the Lord.

So your children are never perfect, also after they're married and out of your home, and the main task you can do is just keep on praying for them. When they get married, of course you have to take a step back, you can't interfere in the marriage. They're a new family unit now, so you take a step back and you take a step down and you double their prayers because now you have an additional child and you Just pray, pray, pray for them, for their marriage, for their spiritual life, for the grandchildren with reverence and with godly fear. And second, Job teaches us that we should pray for our children, younger or older, with urgency. With urgency.

We're told he did it early in the morning. You know what, Spurgeon has a wonderful little quotation on that, He said, Job wanted to hurry to the cross every morning with his children before he did anything else. I love that, don't you? To hurry to the cross. Bring them there right away.

Surrender them today to the cross. Oh, blessed are the children that have such a father. You know, he just didn't wait till bedtime at night and said, you know, I think I better say a quick prayer for the kids. No, no, he was praying earnestly, constantly for his children. Third, he was praying with perseverance.

Notice how the text ends. Job one verse five. Thus did Job continually, continually. He didn't take a vacation from praying for them. He didn't say, I need a break.

Continually, it was his delight to pray for his children. He's a priest to his children even after they were married. Keep on praying, keep on praying for your children, for your grandchildren. Where There's prayer, there's life. Where there's life, there's hope.

And fourth, intercede for your children by faith in Christ. By faith in Christ. You can't give your children what you need. So what did Job do? Well, he took these bullocks, a bullock for each child.

Must have killed a lot of animals in his life. It took time, it took energy, it took money, but Job did it willingly. It's the souls, it's the eternal destiny. It's the well-being of his children. This is more important than his time, his energy, his money.

Now today, of course, we don't need to take bullocks because Christ has come and shed his blood once for all. So we can just go to Jesus directly, directly. In our stated times of prayer, but also throughout the day. As our kids come to mind, just send up short, earnest petitions to God. Pray for them, Pray for each one of them, one by one.

One by one. We serve our families as priests by looking to the great high priest whose blood and righteousness can save the most hard-hearted child and drive out the most stubborn sin of a believer. The more you exercise your priestly ministry as a husband, as a father, the more you'll discover the presence of the living God, generally speaking, in your family. You know, I grew up in a rather hyper-Calvinistic situation and there weren't many people that were deemed converted. Even though they were very conservative, people from other churches thought everybody was very godly in our church but it wasn't really that way from the inside.

But I believe a lot through the example of my father, my mother, and God's pure grace that it was different in the family that I was raised up in. All my brothers and sisters, all of us were converted when we were young, and that was unusual in our circles. And I was at a meeting, I was at a meeting in a church just after I became a minister, so I'm in my mid-20s now, and I overheard one of the elders say to my father who was an elder at the meeting, I overheard him say, I wasn't supposed to hear it, Mr. Beeke, all your children have been saved. Can I ask you, what you did?

What you did? And I'll never forget my father's answer. He said, it was the pure grace of God, and it was the prayers of their mother. It was the pure grace of God, and it was the prayers of their mother. My mother would be praying for us a couple hours a day actually She'd be on her knees in the morning We'd go tiptoeing past the living room.

We'd see it see it the shadows. She's on her knees when we went to get ourselves a bowl of cereal She'd come in a little while later, but we knew she'd been there a while. She just was a habitual prayer warrior. If we kids were ever arguing a little bit, we'd just see her walk out of the room and we know she was going into the bedroom. It would stop the argument.

She didn't like it when we argued, and she'd go into the bedroom. All she had to do was close the door, and we knew, oh, mom's going there to pray for us. We better cut it out, guys. I mean, What an effective tool of discipline, prayer. It worked.

It worked. It worked. I had a brother who was starting to court a young lady that was not good for him. And my mother was so devastated. She was just weeping all the time about it.

And he'd walk in the house and see her weeping. And he knew, he knew she was weeping because he was pursuing this relationship. You know what he did? He went to that so-called girlfriend and he said, I don't know how to explain this to you, but I can't go out with you anymore because my mother's tears. She's waking and I've got a praying mother.

I can't do this to her. The power in our family, I can't explain it to you, the power of my dad's teaching combined with my mother's prayers was amazing. It was amazing. So what I'm saying to you is be a priest and those quiet prayers in the secret place. Oh bless our children, you have them from their father and from their mother.

And then finally, you need to serve as a king or queen in your family? Just two thoughts here too and then we'll wrap this up. First of all, you need to defend your children. You need to defend them. The king is the primary warrior of a kingdom.

Your home is like a kingdom. And so physical enemies, of course, must be met with physical force. Sometimes a father may have to protect children from a physical danger, but The main duty here, it is a father's responsibility to defend his family spiritually. We fight a spiritual warfare in our families with divine weapons, not weapons of the flesh, 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. And so fathers must fight this battle with the kingly authority entrusted to them to defend their precious ones.

So what does that mean? Well it means you should defend your children, for example, against the ungodly abuse of electronic media. Cell phones can receive and send pornography. Cults can recruit children through internet chat rooms. We need a system to control the use of modern media in our homes.

If we do not monitor and limit the use of these devices, our children may become passive observers sitting for hours in front of the television, texting, emailing, playing video games. Now don't get me wrong, communications technology can be helpful, but it also creates an illusion of intimacy without fostering real relationships or a real active life of service. And our goal as godly parents must not be to raise couch potatoes. Our children may not appreciate the limitations we impose upon their use of such devices, but they will appreciate your taking time to provide family-oriented alternatives, such as reading to them, playing games, sports together, involving them in your own work, or recreational pursuits that are healthy and wholesome. Defend them against the ungodly abuse of electronic media.

Also defend them against unwise romantic relationships. Romantic love can be stronger than death for teenagers. And young people often lack the wisdom to discern the end results of immediate choices. The whole scenario of dating in America as an activity for personal pleasure with no connection to marriage is a disaster. Disaster.

It promotes immorality and you need to you need to defend your children from this nonsense. Human sexuality is both precious and dangerous. It should never be reduced to just casual entertainment. Sexuality is the glue that bonds a man and woman together for a lifetime, and thus all families and society. So fathers should be involved in regulating, together with mothers, the relationships of their children with members of the opposite sex.

Now you don't need to be an overprotective tyrant towards your children. But you need, you need, you just can't let a young man take out your daughter whom you've never met. It's crazy. Your daughter's worth millions. You know, I gotta tell you this quick story.

My wife and I, we went to Mississippi one time for a conference. And They put us up in the home of a couple that were really, really wealthy. A couple swimming pools in their backyard with a little stream in between them and whatnot. But when we walked in the home, there was this tension in the home. We could feel it right away.

And we hadn't sat down more than an hour with him. And suddenly, the father blurts out this problem, asks our advice. And it was about his daughter. His daughter wanted to go out with a certain young man who finally asked her out. She finally got her way.

And So she told him, but you've got to come and ask my dad permission. Of course. And he said, well, I'm not going to ask your dad permission. What in the world is this all about? You know, he didn't come from a culture that anything like this was ever done.

So he said, well, I'm just going to cancel the invitation then. And the mother, the daughter was very upset with her dad then, because she spoiled her one dream. And the mother was very upset with her husband because she took the side of her daughter. So they explained the situation to us. I'm sitting there side by side with Mary, and they're asking us, what's our opinion?

And I'm thinking, like, what in the world did I do to ever deserve to get thrown into this mess. And as I'm thinking about it, feeling sorry for myself, my wife suddenly pops up and she says, what kind of car was it in the garage? Corvette. She said, what would you think if a young man just came to the front door? Because we came through the garage when we came in the house.

We saw this bright, shining, beautiful Corvette, I don't know, 50, 100, 000, whatever it was. And my wife goes, what would you think of a young man who came to the front door and would say, Mr. So-and-so, could you please give me the keys to your carvet? Wouldn't you say, well, wait a minute, young man, you know, come on in I got to check out who you are and I got to get to know you a little bit before I give you this vehicle worth a hundred thousand dollars And then my wife looks at him and the two ladies and she goes And isn't your daughter worth a lot more than a Corvette? Boom, bingo.

I'm glad I didn't talk before my wife. And the guy looks, oh man, don't get this wrong, but he fell in love with my wife right at that moment. He just thought the world of my wife. But the two women, that was the cool part. The two women said, ah, yeah, actually Dad was trying to care about us.

And so they backed off, the tension was diffused, and the family was reunited. Now, it's important that our children know this as well. I remember very much so. One of our daughters didn't get much attention by any of the young men in our church. And she was going to a Christian college across the street from us.

And she went with me to preach somewhere in the neighborhood. And on the way home, she was driving. I was just sitting there in the front seat and I looked at her and I said I said sweetheart I said your father's kind of worried about you right now she looks at me she goes what do you what are you worried about I go well I'm just afraid you're gonna go to that Christian college in a few months. And I said, you've got a lot of virtues that a young man would want. And you haven't been noticed by young men in our church, but I'm afraid that some young man's gonna notice you at that college who really doesn't have the same kind of core convictions we have about spirituality and Christianity and that you might be tempted to become too attracted to him.

And she looked at me with this huge surprise on her face and she said the most wonderful thing to me. She said, dad, but you know, I would never want to go out with a man that you didn't fully approve of." I go, yes! Yes! You see that was sweet but you know and I hadn't talked with it exactly with her exactly about it that way before, but it was such a sweet moment because I realized, I realized that that's the way she was thinking, not because of what I had specifically said, but because of the whole outgrowth of the relationship. When you speak as a father to your daughter or as parents to your daughter, that for her, you see, and that's the way it oughta be, for her, she wanted, she needed, she felt protected by her father and her mother that we would not let her go out with people that weren't good for her.

So that's my point. As a king, you've got to defend your children from those that would take advantage of them and injure them. And then finally, you've gotta be a king in disciplining your children. I'm going back now to very young children, this last thought, you've gotta discipline them. There's a lot of wrong disciplining of children, I'm convinced of, in our day and age, also by Christians.

So I wanna just give you six or seven quick points here, and I'll be very quick and we'll wrap this up. Number one, you discipline your children in love. If you are going to discipline them with hatred in your heart or anger in your voice. Just tell your children, I've got to think about exactly what the discipline for this situation will be, but I need a little time to think about it, and go and cool off. Don't ever discipline your children in anger.

It doesn't go well. Your children will feel the anger Biblical discipline is always an act of love you take a small child or say a four-year-old onto your lap You sit down next to an older one. You speak kindly in your admonitions, even though you speak with a fairly firm voice. They can still feel your care in your voice. They will recognize it, and they will receive it much better when they really feel that you mean their best welfare.

Don't provoke your children to anger by your anger. Ephesians 6, 4 warns us against that. Number two, discipline your children only after instruction and reproof. Do not discipline a childish misunderstanding. Only willful disobedience, only clear moral infractions against the Ten Commandments or to a clear and specific parental command.

And be careful to distinguish one from the other. And try to use preventative discipline. You know, for example, clean up your room is a far less clear command to a child than put all the toys that are on the floor there back into that toy box. See, that's much more specific. Make sure your child understands your expectations.

Even then, you should ordinarily try verbal rebuke before spanking a child. Spanking a child should only result when the clear instruction and the reproof have been rejected. Three, as needed, discipline your young children, not your older children, can't do that anymore, with appropriate use of corporal punishment. Yeah, that means that God has provided one place on the human body, it's called the rear end, that is designed to sustain a spanking. Don't ever spank them anywhere else in their body, it will come across as angry.

Don't slap them across the face or anything like that. No, God's provided a place. And the spanking should be commensurate with the degree of the offense committed. Sin hurts. The spanking should hurt, but it should not injure the child in any way.

You cannot, you cannot spank so hard that you injure the child. That will build resentment and anger as well. But enough so that the child knows that sin hurts. And four, you discipline your children in honor, in honor as a king. You treat them as a human being created in the image of God even as you discipline them.

Discipline is best done in private, if at all possible, unless a public sin requires a public rebuke in your family. But never humiliate a child, if you can possibly help it, in front of others. Discipline is a form of honor in which you treat the children as responsible, thinking people. Five, discipline your children with consistency and self-control. Never exceed the bounds of what is necessary and safe.

When you go to discipline, when you go to spank a child, remember what you were as a child. Remember your own infirmities. Err on the side of mercy if you have to err. If you discipline, only discipline children when they push you to your emotional limits, then you are training them not in righteousness, but in revenge. And this is perhaps the most difficult requirement in discipline.

Since we all have times of fatigue or emotional weakness, consistent discipline will help your children see past you to the unchanging law of God. And Six, discipline your children for repentance. Always remember the goal of discipline is that those we love should repent and be zealous for God. In other words, discipline aims at restoration of relationships, first between us and God, and second between us and other people. So this keeps discipline within the boundaries of love, for it's not for the sake of retributive justice to give deserved punishment, but for the sake of restorative mercy to win back those going astray.

Spanking should be like the tap of the shepherd's staff on the side of a sheep headed for the edge of a cliff. And seven, discipline your children in prayerful humility. Do not discipline in an attempt to completely control your children. You'll discover you can't. Children have their own wills.

We are not to crush their wills. We are to break their wills, but not crush them. We are not God. Discipline is a form of human guidance. Therefore, we must join our instructions, our rebukes, our appeals, and our spankings with sincere petitions to the Lord that he will take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh to our children." So what does that all look like if you combine it all together?

Well, we had a little room in our house called the Sun Room. It's set apart a little bit. Our children knew that that was the room where they would meet with their father in disciplined time for spanking. Take them into the room, take them by the hand, set them down, close the door. We're alone.

I talk to them, say, do you realize what you did wrong? Do you realize how this is breaking God's commandment? Do you realize that I must spank you for that because God wants me to discipline you? I say it sincerely, I say it in love. Not their head maybe, maybe a little sniffling coming already.

And then I'd lay them across my lap and say, okay, now because of what you did, I'm going to spank you twice. Or maybe once, or maybe if it's really serious, three spankings. And I would do that, and then I would scoop them up in my arms and hold them tight. And say, well first of all, I forgot the most important step. First of all, I say, you have to tell me that you're sorry for what you did and that with God's help you won't do it again.

Before I spank. But after I spank, Then I would hold them tight and say now let's pray together. I pray for their forgiveness Thank God for their repentance And then we would walk out of the room holding hands Now I must tell you this distant work equally well for all the children. One child it worked very well for, almost every time. One was, meh, middle of the road, and one it didn't work for at all.

And I had to find other methods to discipline. Like that child was much more impacted by just putting the child in a room for quiet time. So you learn those lessons as you go along. But there's love throughout the discipline process. That's what I want to get across.

And when the discipline process is over, there should be closure, closure. You never bring it up again. It's done. The child's repentant. Like Spurgeon said, when you bury a dead dog, you don't leave its tail sticking up out of the ground.

It's buried. Okay? By the way, that's important in your marriage too. You don't ever bring up something that's resolved between husband and wife again. It's done.

All right, conclusion. Maybe after you hear this talk, you're feeling discouraged or you're thinking I did a lot of things wrong, please don't, please don't go home that way. Christ is a forgiving Savior. Just go to him and say forgive me for not being a good prophet, priest, and king. Help me to change and start implementing the change as best you can.

Looking to him for grace. We are all failures a thousand times as parents, thousand times. We said, my wife and I say to each other so many times, we've made so many mistakes, but God is still gracious. So go back to Christ and in him he will help you but do strive to be prophets and priests and kings unto the living God. It's never too late to start.

If you didn't do it with your children, start in some small way with your grandchildren. You're not the same as a parent, of course, as a grandparent, but you can teach them. You can take them on your lap. You can teach them like a prophet. It can be a great help to your children.

So I close this talk with the prayer of a 17th century Puritan. I just wanna use this as my closing prayer. Let's pray. This is not my prayer, it's from a 17th century Puritan. Lord God, let those that are united to me in tender ties be precious in thy sight and devoted to thy glory.

Sanctify and prosper all my domestic devotion, my domestic instruction, my domestic discipline, my domestic example that my house may be a nursery for heaven and a church as the garden of the Lord enriched as trees of righteousness of thy planting for thy glory. Let not those in my family who are amiable, moral and attractive fall short of heaven at last, but grant that the promising appearances of tender consciences, of soft hearts, of the alarms and delights of thy word may not be blotted out, but may bring forth judgment unto victory in and through Jesus Christ in all those whom I love. Amen. Thanks for watching!