A Father's Role in Preparing His Children for Marriage

Around here. All right, Well, we change our focus here and begin to, as we already have in the previous session, look at some of the more practical applications involved in this process. But in order for us to do that, we've we've sort of got a picture of what the process ought to look like, what those principles are that ought to govern the process. Now we want to look more specifically at the father and his role now, rather than simply look at the father and his role in this process, we covered much of that. I want us to look at the father and his role in his family. I wanna do this for a number of reasons. Hey, you kill multiple birds with one stone by doing this. If we know what a father's role is in his family, we know several things. One, we know what dad's job is in general. Amen. Secondly, we know what dad's job is in particular as it relates to his children and their marriages. Thirdly, we know what it is that we're looking for in a potential suitor because we now have a job description. You follow that. Now we know and then finally we know what it is that we are to inculcate in our children, preparing our daughters to look for and our sons to strive for all because we now know what the job description is for the father within the context of his home. So we're going to look at the father and his duties to his family in general, and to his daughters and then to his sons. The Bible is not silent on this issue at all, and you'd be amazed at how much clear teaching there is on the issue. We don't think much of fathers in our culture. I don't know. You know, there's not much out there that's worth watching, especially with any kind of regularity. But if you are familiar at all with modern sitcoms over the last twenty years or so, you know that fatherhood is mocked in our culture. I mean, it is just it's a joke. It's a running joke. It's a standing gag, if you will, the idea of the father and his role. And as a result of that, we really don't think much of fathers. Not that we don't think about fathers much, which we don't, but we also don't think much of fathers. This is also true because of rising statism, and statism, as I stated earlier, is the idea that the state will stand in that you know pay teocentric role, that the state will be that hub from which all the spokes then emanate. That the state is the one who is responsible for taking care of the means of the family, not the father. It's not the father's responsibility. It is the role of the state. That is what statism does. As the state assumes that role, fathers become less and less significant, and less and less important. Sometimes this happens directly, for example, in many poorer communities. In many poorer communities where you have, you know, the sort of rise of the welfare state. What you have in many instances is a woman who can get government housing, who can get food stamps and other forms of government assistance as long as there's not a man in the house. And so now what the state has said is, I will provide for you, and I'll do it without fail I won't be a hardship, I won't demand anything of you, I won't snore, I won't leave dirty underwear around. But I will pay your rent, I will buy your food. I will do all of these things for you, and you can go see whoever you want. If you don't want that, then you can have a man and all the difficulties and troubles that come with having a man, and in many instances the response is I'll take the state please, which over the course of generations creates this endemic fatherlessness in a culture. And we're seeing that fondlessness. Out of what locked birth the United States have risen above forty percent, and in some segments of American culture and society it's even greater than that. For example, among Black Americans, out of what like, birth rates are above seventy percent. Okay, it's above seventy percent. And so we don't think much of father's for a number of reasons, we don't think much of fathers. But listen to what the father's responsibility is. Listen, look at the Old Testament. One personally modeling strict fidelity to God. That was a father's job, his duty, modeling for his family what it meant to be committed to Yahweh. Secondly, leading the family in the national festivals and nurturing the memory of Israel's salvation. Again, when Israel had a festivals, when Israel had different feasts than things of this nature. It was a father's responsibility to leave his family in these processes and represent his family in these processes. Thirdly, to instruct the family in the traditions of the exodus and of the scriptures. It was a father's responsibility to instruct the next generation in these areas. Fourth, managing the land in accordance with the law. That was his father's responsibility, a man's duty, and his sons along with him once they were old enough. Five providing for the family's basic need for food, shelter, clothing, and rest. Now, I always pause here because when you use that last, wait, wait a minute. Providing for his family's need for rest. Yes, what do you think the Sabbath is all about? And in the Sabbath commandment, it is the head of household who is responsible to see to it that his wife, his children, his man servants, his maid servants are honoring that day. Now, who has jurisdiction that would allow them to see to it that those individuals in the household are honoring and resting on the Lord's day. Only the head of household. So it's the father's responsibility to see to it that his family has a biblical pace of life. Six Defending the household against outside threats. Defending the household against outside threats, serving as an elder and representing the household in the official Assembly of citizens. Serving as an elder and representing the household in the official Assembly of citizens. And it's interesting, we think about this, and we could do this on a number of these issues. But there is much of our culture and our society and our history that's rooted in these principles. And you say, oh, no, our society is not rooted in these principles. Yes, actually it is. If you just think about America fifty years ago. You grew up in a small town. You have a young man who's ten eleven years old, and he gets into some mischief and he goes and does some vandalism or break some windows or whatever. What immediately happens, you take him to his daddy, and his daddy becomes responsible for meting out justice to that boy. But oh, by the way, he's also on the hook for what the boy did because father represents that family in that community. Okay, that's a biblical idea. That's a biblical concept. Maintaining family members well being in the harmonious operation of the family unit and implementing decisions made at the klan or tribal level. Okay, implementing decisions made at the klan or tribal level. And so there is a decision that is made, how do we implement that from the highest levels of government down to the lowest level of government. By the way, what is that lowest level of government, that lowest level of government, course, his self government under God. But right above that is the family and its jurisdiction. And so father has had the responsibility for interpreting these things and communicating them to their families. Now, but what about in the New Testament. In the New Testament, again, like in the Old Testament, modeling personal commitment to Christ is obviously a responsibility of a father, but providing for his family is an explicit responsibility of the father. First time in the chapter five and verse eight, we read that a man who does not provide for his own especially the members of his own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Now, I want to pause here for a moment because I just want us to think about that. The apostle Paul is using strong language here. What's the strongest thing that the apostle could possibly say about a man? You've denied the faith. You're worse than an unbeliever. What stronger could be said about a man? You've denied the faith. This action that you are taking is the action of a man who has not been born again. It is as though you do not belong to God. This is the strongest language you're going to find in the New Testament. And now here's the second thing that I want you to grasp about that verse. It is in reference to a man taking care of his mother when she's old, not his wife. The context there is widows. That's the context. It is assumed that a man takes care of his wife and of his children. First time of chapter five and verse eight says, you've denied the faith, and you're worse than an unbeliever if you don't take care of your mama when she's old. Can it be made any plainer than that? Okay? So again, this idea of providing for his family to lead in disciples life, we see that in Ephesians five twenty six, to disciple and discipline his children. We see that in Ephesians six one through four to lead their wives and children in prayer. We see this in a number of places, but most interestingly in One Peter, chapter three and verse seven men are called upon to live with their wives in an understanding manner. The phrase there on the end that your prayers may not be hindered. Now here's what we usually think. Okay, sir, you need to live with your wife in an understanding manner so that when you're praying for stuff, God will listen to you as an individual praying for stuff because of the way you treat your wife. No no, no, no, no no no. The language there in the context there is you are praying as a priest of your household. There are prayers being offered up on behalf of you and your wife, and you and your family. And the hindrance there is not to your personal fulfillment, but the hindrance there is to your household because of your lack of living with your wife in an understanding manner. He's the prayer leader in his home. This is a far cry from what we have come accustomed to, a far cry today. A man is a good father if he just puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. Today. A man is a good father if he provides for his family better than his father provided for his family, and sees to it that his children are sufficiently educated so that one day they can provide better for their children than He provides for them. It is provision and nothing else. In fact, so warped is our understanding of this, that there is this common clash that occurs in families. It is a clash between what we've been told is right and what we see is desperately needed. And it goes something like this, sweetheart, I just don't even know how to say this to you, but it is as though you're disengaged. It is as though you're not a part of us anymore. Children are growing up before your eyes and they barely know you. Your son is going to be gone in no time, and it's as though you don't even know him, which is usually met with you know what, that's easy for you to say, But I'm going to work every day so that i can provide all of this. What do you want from me. That's a clash between the culture that has told a man your only responsibility is to bring home a paycheck so that they can eat and they can live, and a wife who's mired in the day to day, who is seeing the reality that God has placed in the universe, and that is this a father is far more critical than just providing a paycheck. And those things clash, and they clash regularly. And the reason they clash is because we've been sold this bill of goods that completely obliterates this picture, this biblical picture of a father and here's responsibilities, and replaces it with another picture that looks nothing like what we see in the scriptures and completely emasculates a man. It emasculates a man, it takes away the essence of his manhood. And here's what's sad, we don't even realize it, because we've become so used to living without the essence of our manhood that we define ourselves by the leftovers because it's all we got, not realizing that this is what it is to which we've been called and it is a glorious, overwhelming, intimidating, beautiful thing to be ahead of a household. Well, how about a father's responsibility to his daughters in particular, let's look at that a number of things. Let me give them to you first, and then we'll look at them a little more carefully. Number one, a father has a responsibility of protecting his daughters from male predators, so that she would marry as a virgin and thus bring honor to the Lord and purity to her husband. Secondly, a father has a responsibility for arranging for his daughter's marriage by finding a suitable husband and making proper arrangements, not arranging her marriage. Not what I said, okay, Although, Three ensuring a measure of security for his daughter by providing a dowry. Again, this is an Old Testament principle. I'm gonna show you how significant it is. Four protecting his daughter from rash vials. Five providing security for his daughters in case the marriage fails. And finally we understand instructing his daughters in the scriptures. Now, I want us to take a few moments and look at each of these responsibilities that a father has and the way that they are sort of teased out in scripture, so that we grasp these principles. The first, the father has a responsibility to protect his daughters from male predators so that they will marry his virgins, thus bringing honor to our Lord and purity to their husbands. We've heard about this masterfully in our last session. But look at the way this fits together with a father's role in his household. Dude, not even chapter twenty two, Verses twenty and twenty one. You know, some of the most disturbing, some of the most disturbing truth that you'll ever read in the Bible. There are parts of the Old Testament that quite frankly resemble that relative that's related to you. But you hope nobody ever finds out. Oh, don't act like you don't have that uncle. Okay, there are parts of the Bible that we feel that way about. You know, there's stuff in the Bible that's like, okay, you know what, just don't read that because you have to really understand the whole thing, and just don't grab that right there, because if you grab that right there, it's really not just Here's one. A woman is married. Here's a scenario before I give you this case law. A woman is married. Her husband comes back and believes that she was not a virgin at the time of the marriae comes to the father to make the accusation. The father, who keeps the betting from the marriage bed as evidence of the virginity of his daughter, is to produce that evidence. He produces that evidence, the young man is in a world a hurt. But if he does it But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then you shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the man of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by houring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst Now again, for a moment, try to move beyond the fact that you're disturbed by this, and understand this is a principle in the law. This is a principle that we find in God's word. But one is being said here a number of things. One, what's being said here is that God is serious about purity. Secondly, what's being said here is that the buck stops at Dad's door. If there's nothing else that we learn from this text, what we learn is God is serious about purity. And secondly we learn that the buck stops at Dad's door. Thirdly, though Dad is ultimately responsible, the daughter is held accountable in the utmost for her actions. Now, it's this case law for Israel and the theocracy in the ancient Near East, a one to one correlation to the way that we govern ourselves. As members of the Kingdom of God in this new covenant relationship with Christ. No, but that doesn't mean we ignore the principle. It's as real, it's as true as it ever was. God is serious about purity. By the way, the seriousness about purity goes all the way forward to the picture of the bride of Christ, who clothes herself in white linen, because it symbolizes the purity of his beloved, that he's redeemed with his blood. So Christ, then is the one who has stoned at the door of his father's house in a very real sense, and it's on behalf of his bride. He is the pure one. And yet experience is the stoning of the impure one, not just at his father's house, but ultimately at his father's hand, so that you and I might be pure brides in spite of the fact that we were not. Exodus twenty two, sixteen seventeen. If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married, and lies with her, he shall give the bride price for her and make her his wife. So the idea here is that a man seduces a woman. If a man seduces a woman that is not to be taken lightly. You seduce a woman, Remember what happens earlier if you find if this woman goes and gets married to somebody else and it's discovered that she's not a virgin. Okay, you remember that, right, If it's discovered that she's not a virgin, we have a huge problem here. So now you've seduced a woman, and you've laying with this woman. You are now obligated to marry this woman. You pay the bride price for her, and she is to be your bride. This is not something that's taken lightly. Next phrase, if her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride price for virgins. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, who has the last word here? Her father has the last word here, her father. So again we see this picture of a father in his responsibility to protect and preserve the purity of his daughter. Secondly, let's peak provisions for our daughter's marriage by finding suitable husbands and making proper arrangements. Deuteronomy seven three to five. Listen to this. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their son or taking their daughters for your sons. For they who turn away your I'm sorry for they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. Now God's word here is addressing Israel before they go into the Promised Land. And there's communication here about not intermarrying with the people in the Promised Land. But notice to whom the instructions are given, fathers, because it's your responsibility to govern this process. It's on you Ezra nine to twelve. Therefore, do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their never seek their peace or prosperity. That you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever Nami thirteen twenty five. And I confronted them and cursed them, and beat some of them and pulled out their hair, and I made them take oath in the name of God, saying you shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Jeremiah twenty nine to six. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there and do not decrease Luke, Chapter twenty, Verses thirty four and thirty five. Let's you think this is just an Old Testament concept. Jesus said to them, the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead, neither Mary nor are given in marriage. Again, given in marriage, given in marriage. It is a father's responsibility. It is a father's duty to govern this process. It is a father's duty to oversee this process. Let me demonstrate to you how far we've fallen. Not right about this and what he must be, but we've fallen so far that you will hear families say this, Oh, he's a fine young man, just a great young man. And what they mean is this that the young man who met their daughter offered college and slept her off her feet before he asked her to marry him, knowing by the way that he already had her heart, made arrangements to speak with the father and ask the father not for permission to pursue the daughter, but for permission to ask for her hand in marriage and in our culture and this day and asked that is a fine young man. He's a throwback. Why because he asked for permission before he asked for marriage. Now listen, he stole your daughter's heart before you knew his name, and now having secured her heart, he comes to you and basically holds your daughter hostage and says to you, she's mine already, And the only reason I'm gonna ask her is because I already know there's going to be a yes. What I'm doing for you is giving you an ultimatum. You can either agree that I can have rightfully what I've stolen, or you can say no and lose your daughter. What's it gonna be, Pops, that's not a good man. That's a poacher. That's a poacher. Now in Texas we shoot poachers. I'm just saying, must provide security for our daughters through a type of dowry. Listen, I use this example. Lavin is one of the worst characters in the entire Bible. Yet listen to this. Lavin gave his female servant Zilpah, to his daughter Leah to be her servant. And again Lavin gave his female servant Billha to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. One of the biggest scoundrels in the whole Bible. But when his daughters get married. Now he's crafty and the way he got built up and married off. Okay, but he provides a dowry for them both. This scoundrel provides for them both. Now you say those words, and some of those people pass through who just hate patriarchy, you know, they they look for it. They got whole websites devoted to, you know, finding you know, moments like this in a message where they take twenty nine seconds out and say, you see this, he's proposing a dowry. You know. But listen, here's what I want to ask you. The average wedding today, are you already those of you who don't have married children, don't let this discourage you, because you don't have to do this. All right, The average wedding today costs twenty five thousand dollars. It's the average wedding today, twenty five thousand dollars. Now here's what I'm saying How on earth do we live in a culture where people don't sneeze at paying twenty five thousand dollars for a wedding to impress people that they don't even like. But I'm talking about a dowry which would look something like this. You know what, maybe we're not gonna spend twenty five thousand dollars on your wedding. We'll spend five grand, but then we'll give you the other twenty so you guys can go establish your house. Now you do that, and all of a sudden you're a caveman because you're essentially talking about a form of dowry. But you throw the twenty five grand on one night and your valiant. That's crazy. You can't get there from here. People. But we are more concerned about the pomp and circumstance, which quite frankly, has much more to do with how much we love Cinderella and the princess and the frog and so on and so forth that spending that kind of money on a wedding has to do with fairy tales that we fed our daughters since the time that they were small. They have more to do with that than it does anything to do with honoring Christ in this process of marriage. I'm telling you we need to start thinking about not spending so much money on kids getting married and instead helping them to start with a leg up by providing some kind of financial security for them when they get married. It'll protect our daughters from rash vows. But again on the website, all you're gonna get from that, you know, he believes that you ought to trade your daughter for a dowry when you arrange our marriage. Oh, bless God, all right, numbers thirty three through five. I want us to be careful with this one. I want us to open your bibles, if you get your bibles. I know we got a lot of verses that I'm running through and you may not have been looking at them, and you're taking here. I want you to look at this one. I want your hands to touch this one. Okay. Numbers chapter thirty. Numbers chapter thirty, and I'm reading from ESV. If a if a woman vows a vow to the Lord, can we say that together? If a woman vows a vow to the Lord, and we just say that last part together again to the Lord? Okay, to whom has she vowed to the Lord? I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page. Here. That a woman has made a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge while within her father's house in her youth, and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself, and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. Who's she pledged to? And her father can negate it? And look at the last phrase, and the Lord will forgive her because her father opposed her. Some of you got that. Look, you know where you want to You want to take your Bible and do one of these you go, Is that the same God? Well, she vows a vow to the Lord, not some guy. She vows a vow to God. She says to the God of Heaven, this is what I'm going to do. And the text says if dad puts time out on that and says that's not going to stand. The Bible says God will forgive her because her father opposed her. That is so foreign to us. But the idea here is that the father has a responsibility to protect his daughter from rash vows. Let me give you an example here, a young woman comes to the Lord because immediately when we see this, because we don't have a healthy picture of fathers, immediately when we see this, our idea is, now, wait a minute, a vow to the Lord. That's a good thing, it's a wonderful thing. And the father's gonna get in a way. And the Lord wants to serve God. The girl wants to serve God, but the father doesn't want her to serve God. Listen, understand the context here. The context here is a father who is the head of his household, operating biblically, and the young woman who is young, a young woman who in her youth may say something that she absolutely does not understand, that she cannot comprehend, and she opens her mouth and commits herself to the Lord to something that is completely foolish, to promise to God. And her father comes to the young woman and says, you know what, I know you love God, but that's not a promise. You need to make in fact, you're presuming upon God when you make that kind of the promise to God. Okay. An example, and I've seen this example on a number of occasions. You go to it's confession time. Okay. I have not always been a reformed Baptist. I came to faith late, never hurt of the gospel till my freshman year in college. I was raised and drug infested, gang infested south central Los Angeles, California, by a single teenage Buddhist mother. Okay, So I didn't come to this, you know, growing up with all this stuff and my church experience and my training early on was Baptist, but it was Armenian, Semipalasian, you know, manipulative arm twisting. I see that hand, you know, it was that. That was That was the stuff, okay. And one of the things that he used to do is they used to preach at these evangelistic rallies. And at these evangelistic rallies, they would say, now, brother, we want you to give the call to salvation, but we also want to make sure that you'd give the call the vocational service to the Lord. And so you know, you'd stand up and you'd give the call for people to come walk the aisle and give saved and then guarantee them that based on walking from there to hear you can now tell them that their name is in the Last Book of Life. And then you would get other individuals who would come because right there in that moment, they just felt like, you know, I'm a serving the Lord. And I sat many a time and saw a young woman twelve thirteen years old. God's called me to be a missionary in Africa, and I'm standing here today to accept that call. That's where numbers thirty comes in. That's where a father comes to his daughter and says, I know you love God, and I know you want to serve God, and it's good that you want to serve God. But that's not a vow that you should vow. You tell God that you'll serve him and that you do whatever he calls you to do. But here's what I don't want for you, sweetheart. I don't want you to have an opportunity to serve the Lord. And here you are married to a man who's got a calling on his life, and God has brought him up in a situation where he speaks Spanish and then he goes to South America and you're by his side, and you're ministering the people in South America who've never heard the gospel before. And while God is pouring down blessings from heaven, all you can think of is the fact that you're not keeping your promise that you made when you are thirteen years old. Because it's South America and not Africa. You follow me. That's what we're talking about here. That's a father's responsibility as he's engaged in this process. Or a thirteen year old who says I'm gonna be single and I'm never gonna get married. You know what, sweetie, I'm your daddy and I know you and things could develop for you later on in life, but right now, I don't see that gift in you. Don't make that promise. Okay, that's what we're talking about when we talk about rash vows. Okay, let's provide for his daughter in case they're abandoned. Listen to this again. We need to listen carefully to this one. S Leaviticus twenty two. This is eleven to thirteen. If a priest's daughter marries a layman, So you got a woman who's her father is a priest, a member of the the levitical priesthood. If a priest's daughter marries a layman, he's not a priest. She shall not eat of the contribution of the Holy Things because growing up in her father's house, Again, the priests were sustained by those offerings that came in. There were some that were totally consumed, but there were others that That's how the priests were sustained, and so the priest's families would be sustained by those same offerings. However, she now marries a layman, she is not to eat of the contribution to the Holy Things. But if a priest's daughter is widowed or divorced and has no child, by the way, the idea is not here that she's never born a child. The idea is that she doesn't have a child old enough to then care for her, or particularly a son old enough to then care for her, which would be covered in first time in the chapter five and verse eight. Okay, say has no child and returns to her father's house as in her youth. She may eat of her father's food, Yet no layperson shall eat of it. And what does all that mean? Here's what it means this young woman is the responsibility of her father. Therefore, because her father's a priest, if he eats of the offering, she eats of the offering. But because he's responsible to care for her. Now she goes and marries a lay person, who then is responsible for caring for her, she can no longer eat of the offering because she's not a member of her father's household. However, if that lay person dies and she doesn't have a son who's old enough to care for her, she then becomes the responsibility of her father again. And because she is now the responsibility of her father again, she may eat of the offering. What's the principle If somehow she's abandoned her father doesn't just wipe her hands and go, hey, you left care when you are eighteen. You're on your own. Go get a job, her father says, come home again. Completely foreign to I recognize this that it's completely foreign to us. And right now, I just I want this to wash over you. I just want you to hear this. I just want you to bathe in this for a while. Because we're so unfamiliar with biblical thinking, let alone these biblical language. As we speak about a father and his responsibility like this, But does it not? As you hear this just add a sense of weightiness to it. If my job is just you know, hey, I go to work. I provide the money so that they can eat and live. That's easy. That's easy. I don't fret about that. I mean, really, what kind of prayer life am I gonna have? Yeah, concerning my family? If that's all I see is my responsibility. You start reading through this thing. Some of you already want to get on your face just right now, because this is waiting and it ought to be. This is our manhood that has been taken away from us. This is where we've been emasculated. This is where we have now come to. All we have left is here's my job. What's your job? Because that's all that measures us as men. These are the way to your matters. Father's responsibility to his sons model biblical manhood in the home of course Proverbs twenty three twenty six. Prepare his sons for marriage and headship in their future households. To walk alongside their sons and teach them a trade, and to care for the land. To tell their sons the story of the exodus with a view toward multi generational remembrance. Let's look at these, oh another one, correct their sons and restrain their iniquity. We see that in several places when we'll talk about those earlier. To teach their son's wisdom from God's word. That's the whole book of Proverbs. Whole book of Proverbs is about a father teaching your son to make arrangements to help their sons secure wives. Beautiful picture there in Genesis twenty four. Beautiful picture that we'll look at here momentarily leave them an inheritance modeling biblical manhood. One of my favorite verses in the Bible, My son, the Proverbs twenty three twenty six, My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe by ways. My son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways. That is the picture of a father's responsibility to model godliness for his son. Give me your Heart's son, trust me, submit to me, give yourself to me, and then you watch me, and you learn from me, and you mimic me. That's the picture. Tell them the story of God's salvation. Jude Army sixth twenty twenty one. When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord, our God has commanded you. Then you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. You rehearse it. Your son's gonna ask you questions, and you be ready to answer the questions of your sons. We hear that over and over and over again. It's not that's the picture in Psalm seventy eight, the picture of one generation telling the next generation of the mighty deeds of God, and the father, as the patriarch in his household, having a responsibility to tell his family, here's who we are, here's where we come from. We don't even get that from just a secular perspective anymore. You know, what used to be holiday time, so on and so forth, and when you got together, a big part of getting together. And I'm forty one years old, but I remember this, so I know some of you in your fifties or sixties or seventies even remember it even more so. But it used to be that when you got together, it wasn't that everybody just went to their own room to play on their own computer or to watch their own television. But it used to be that the older generation would sit down and talk about the old days, and the young people would sit around their feet and listen. They would talk about where they grew up. They would tell stories. You would learn your family history by sitting on the floor while the older generation retold those stories again and again and again. And the ones who had gone to war would talk about having gone to war. The ones who were there when their siblings died would talk about when their siblings died. If great Grandma and great Grandpa were no longer with us, they would tell the stories of great Grandma and Grandpa and then look down at one of us every now and then and say, you know what, you look just like your grandpa did. I was lost and my family was lost, and I loved those times. How much more if they knew God and told me the stories of redemption and how members of my family came to faith in Christ, lived for Christ, and perhaps died for Christ. That's a father's role to remember the salvation history of his family, to remember how God redeemed us. Remember that I remember I Remember that picture Joe rod Bachum, that old black and white picture. You could barely barely make him out. He was already a black man, but he was even blacker by the sun. Why because Joe rod Bacham was the last recorded member of my family who was a slave in the South, and he became a freedman. And that picture of him and the straw hat that he had on, big long, tall man sitting there with his legs crossed, that picture is burned indelibly in the forefront of my mind of how one of my ancestors who was a slave gained his freedom and started a family. Oh, I wish I knew stories, But my ancestors who came their freedom in Christ, I don't. There's nothing I can do about that. I'll tell you what I can do. I can sit around my table and tell those stories. I knew that we have the responsibility to correct our sons and restrain their iniquity. Fathers have a unique responsibility to do this. Why because the wickedness of our sons is different than the wickedness of our daughters, And the influence of fathers is different than the influence of mothers. Deuteronomy twenty one eighteen to twenty one. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, will not listen to them, Then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the city at the gates, the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of the city, this our son is a stubborn and rebellious he will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear. By the way this sun is grown, there's not a five year old by twenty five year old. Probably proverb is nineteen eighteen. Discipline your son, for there is hope. Do not set your heart on putting him to death. Almost a direct response to what we just read. There's hope. There's hope. That's in the case law. You don't have to do it. There's hope. Proverbs twenty nine to seventeen. Discipline your son, and he will give you rest. He will give delight to your heart. One Samuel three thirteen to fourteen, And I declare him that I am about to punish his house forever. This is Samuel. I'm about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli. I'm saying, Samuel Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. By the way, his son's not only grown, they were priests, and God's holding you accountable for not restraining them. Teach them wisdom from the word of God. Proverbs two one through five. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attendant to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. That's the picture of a father and his son son. Of you listen to me, You're gonna hear wisdom, not just homespun wis homespun wisdom ain't bad by the way, Amen, reason those things stay around is because there's good stuff, you know, and you need that. You know you do. You need some penny saved, penny earned. Ye, you need that. But what you need is God's word and God's truth and the principles from God's word. That's the idea. The idea is that a godly man's son, when he grows up and remembers his father, doesn't have just homespun wisdom, but his memories are of the Word of God and the principles found therein that were applied again and again and again to his malleable heart. My father's dead. Now I didn't grow up with my father. I was abandoned by my father, but I knew my father. I saw my father from time to time, and there are still things that my father said to me that ring in my ears, though he was barely around. This is important Proverbs three one and two, My son, do not forget my teaching. Let your heart keep my commandments for length of days and years of life and peace. They will add to you again, helping their sons secure wives. We've read many of these passages already, but Genesis chapter twenty four, verses one through five, this is a beautiful picture. Now when Abraham was old, which again, when we met Abraham early on in Genesis twelve, he was already old. Now in just chapter twenty four. Now, when Abraham was old, well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things, Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he had, put your hand under my thigh, that I may make you swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven and the God of the Earth, that you will not take a wife from my son from among the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac. What a beautiful picture. This man is old, he's at the end of his days, he's about to die, and instead of saying, oh, just get married, I want some grandkids, he gets his servant. I'd notice also he does not get Isaac. He doesn't get Isaac. By the way, there's a tremendous parallel between the marriage of Isaac and the marriage of Jacob. They both go to the same place, but in one instance, Abraham goes to the servant who is going to take over this fatherly role for Isaac and says, you vow to me that you will go to the right place and make the arrangements for my sons. However, in Jacob's instance, his father, who didn't like him but like his brother, instead doesn't do this for him, and instead he is just sort of sent off to go do the best he can with Laban by himself. He's the one who gets taken advantage of because he's the one who had no protection. He's the one who had no one to govern him. And because he had no one to govern him, he was struck by the arrow. And being struck by the arrow, he got sucked in and lost fourteen years of his life, really twenty before it was all said and done, twenty years of his life just squeezed out of him because he went with his passions to find a wife. And the direct parallel and opposite to that is Abraham, who doesn't go to Isaac and say, Isaac, go up here and find no He goes to his servant and he says, you swear by God that you will not find a wife for my son from among these people who do not know God leave an inheritance for their sons. Find that in Deuteronomy twenty one fifteen to seventeen, the ideas that we'll leave in inheritance for our sons. You know what's ironic now in the days in our culture. Have you seen the bumper stickers I'm spending my children's inheritance. No, a godly man leaves an inheritance for his children, A godly man sees to it. A godly man takes care of his family even in his death, even in his death. When we understand all of this, it really doesn't take much of a leap to understand the father's role in this process of his children entering into God honoring God honoring marriages. Our problem is not that fathers don't know the steps, and unfortunately, right now, that's what a lot of people want. You. If you write a courtship book that gives people the fifteen steps, you can make a kabillion dollars in the right circles, because there are people out there who just tell me what to do first, second, third, fourth, that would we just we want to do it right, especially in the homeschool community, cause the homeschool community is filled with people whose favorite question is do you have a curriculum for that? Amen? Homeschool family sees a family with a godly child. The homeschool family does not say place God for his grace in that child's life. Homeschool family comes up and says, now, what program did you use? And can I buy it? If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch, okay, you know, I mean it is that's hard. And so what people want is the steps. And there are a lot of people out there who are providing all the steps. Listen. Our problem is not that people don't know the steps. Our problem is this, we don't have this picture. In fact, when you look in the scriptures, when you look at the Old Testament and the way all these marriages took place, they didn't all take place by the same steps, but there were certain principles that were always being followed, and they flowed from the man and his understanding of his responsibility as husband and father and head of his household. We get this. It changes everything by the way we get this, and now no longer do we go, well, you know, there are two kids and they're madly in love. They can make it. No. Now, in the words that theologian Tina Turner, we say, what's love got to do with it? Okay? Now, what we look at is what marriage is about. As a husband and father and head of a household, I look at the responsibilities that I'm called upon to carry. And when I'm looking at a young man, he can love my daughter to the cows come home. But if he's not ready, willing and able to grapple with these things, now, is he going to have all of them? In Spade's noise, not, We're gonna talk about that in today's last session. Okay, what it looks like in its sort of you know, incubated form, if you will, because unfortunately, what's happening now is we having the opposite problem as well. Again, you got community of people who become serious about this, and then here's the result. On the one hand, you got the pendulum swinging way over there where people are going, hey, there you go, I hope you find a good one. On the other hand, you got people way over here and here's what people in the circles who are committed to biblical God honoring marriage are looking for. They're looking for a man with the strength of a twenty year old, with the experience of a fifty year old, with the financial security of sixty year old, and the wisdom of year old. That's what they're looking for. They want all of that. In fact, I've had to have conversations with guys or I just have to be real honest, and I say to them, you know what, can I just love on you for a minute, because you know, love just speaks truth, right, brother, I need to love on you for a minute. Okay, let me just love on you for a minute. Based on the criteria that you just laid out, you're not ready to marry your daughter. I mean, really, when you listen to what some of these guys are requiring. You got guys with debt requiring that their future son in law not have any amen somebody you. I mean, You've got guys who absolutely know no savings whatsoever to their name, living from a hand to mouth, and they just want a guarantee that the young man who's gonna marry their daughter has six months worth of income in the back. It is the height of hypocrisy. It is utterly ridiculous. And here's the other problem. The other problem is if we're not careful, here's what we're communicating. Marriage is only for the upper middle class. Think about that for a moment, because that's what we're communicating. If you don't have an upper middle class income and you don't live an upper middle class lifestyle, then marriage is not for you because the requirements that we set out look just like that. What happens. What happens if God sends a David brainerd your way who's never gonna have much of anything, and it's okay with God. By the way, there are some men whom God calls to a kind of service that will never make them rich, and yet they love God and they serve God. And if you listen to a lot of families who say that they're committed to this courtship thing, they say that man's not qualified because if my daughter marries him, she's not gonna have six months worth of income in the bank. But instead there are gonna be times when she lives in a place where there's no electricity, because she's ministering to a people group that doesn't have electricity, and they are eating what those people eat and sometimes that's not much, but they are pressing forward the crown rights of King Jesus, and that just doesn't satisfy me. Oh God help us, God help us for thinking like this. Have you forgotten what your struggles forged in you when you were early in your marriage. Do you not remember when you really learned how to pray because you didn't have six months what they income in the bank. Do you remember that? Let's be careful, please. I'm not saying that we be irresponsible or that we look toward men who are irresponsible. There's a difference between a responsible, godly man who, because of the calling on his life, is never gonna be wealthy, and an irresponsible man who just less money run through his fingers like a sieve. There's a difference between the two, and all I'm saying is know the difference and don't set these false parameters and false standards. And the way you avoid that is by starting with the foundation of who the father is and what his responsibility is within the context of his family. When you understand that, it puts everything else in his perspective. It settles those other issues. Does it make it easy to place your daughter's hand in the hand of another man. The most apt description I've ever heard of that process of giving your daughter away in marriage is the description of taking a Stratavarius violin and placing it into the paws of a three hundred pound gorilla. It's just gonna feel like that. But we've got to understand what the goal is, and we need to impress this on the hearts of our sons and our daughters. See, oftentimes we feed the romanticism and our daughter comes home with the guy's chest. Not right. But here's the question, what other appetite have you created? Have you talked with her about this picture? Have ha? Has she watched your shoulders buckle under the weight of this kind of sober christ honoring fatherhood? Or is all she has a picture of a guy who goes to work, comes home, clicks on the TV and checks out. We get this, We change everything. Let's pray, Father, how grateful we are for the mercy that you've shown us. There is not a man in this room, nor has there ever been a man in any other room, who is measured up to all these things. And we recognize that Christ, and Christ alone is where we find the fullness of these truths, and that what we need death spritly is to cling to the cross, wherein we find our only hope. But we thank you nonetheless for painting a picture for us, for allowing us to see how shallow and insignificant fatherhood has become in our culture, and how glorious and god honoring it is in the scriptures. May we, by your grace strive for these things in Christ, And would you, by your grace produce them in our lives through Christ? And would you be so kind as to cause our children to yearn for these things so much, though that they would never be satisfied if anything less than that which acknowledges and strives for these truths. I pray these things, hope these things, Ask these things for Christ's sake and in his name. Amen, Amen,