The Christian Family: God's Directives to Fathers

The point: Get some of the tapes relative to other aspects of the Christian family that are in your tape library.

Martin shares his personal experience of working 40-60 hours a week on church renovation with his own hands while carrying on pastoral duties, to illustrate that he understands the effort required for people to attend evening services.

I know what that is, both before and during the ministry. When renovating our own church, I was putting in 40, 50, 60 hours a week with my own children. I was putting in 40, 50, 60 hours a week with my own hands, plus carrying on pastoral duties. And I know it's an effort to come.

0:57 - 1:10 Read in full sermon

The point: As a Christian father you have no alternative but to say, Even though I've been a miserable flop and failure to this night, I am open to the command of my savior.

Paul's self-description in 1 Thessalonians 2:11, dealing with believers 'as a father with his own children,' is used as an example of the accepted biblical standard of a father's individual instruction and attention, which Martin laments is rare today.

1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 11. I'm sorry not 13. As ye know how we dealt with each one of you. Not as a mother with her children.

8:35 - 8:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't provoke them to delayed anger either. And one of the great problems. One of the great problems in our day is right here. Parents said this. Oh I dare not upset my child by restraining him, by spanking him, by disci…

A young woman dying in a hospital ward confronts her mother, lamenting that she was taught how to live a socialite life but not how to die. This illustrates the 'delayed anger' children feel when parents indulge them and fail to instruct them in holy things, leaving them unprepared for life's ultimate realities.

Because they were never made to do what they didn't want to do. And it's that generation of kids that have turned around and thumbed their noses at their parents. They've been provoked to anger by the cursed spineless indulgence of their parents. They haven't restrained them.

18:34 - 18:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Has it gripped you, fathers, that you're raising future fathers? And your son will probably in all likelihood be no better a father than you are. You're raising future neighbors, husbands, wives, servants of Jesus Christ…

The verb 'nurture' (nourishes and cherishes) from Ephesians 5:29, describing how a man nourishes his body and Christ nourishes the church, is used to define the father's task: providing everything necessary for a child's normal, useful development and sustenance in all dimensions.

Right up in chapter 5. Look at it. In verse 29. No man ever hated his own flesh, and here's the verb, but nourishes and cherishes it as Christ the church.

20:40 - 20:55 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have never on your knees read through the book of Proverbs, praying that God would teach you how to use the rod of correction biblically, you have miserably failed as a father.

Hebrews 12:7-8, which states that children without chastening are 'bastards and not sons,' is used to powerfully illustrate that a father who does not discipline his children treats them as if they are illegitimate and unclaimed, lacking true love.

says to you. If you discipline your children, your kids are no better off than little illegitimate bastard children who run the streets with nobody claiming them. You say, preacher, I'll punch you in the nose if you say that. I didn't say it. God did. Where did God say it? All right, look right in your Bible at Hebrews 12. Look what it says. Look what it says. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 7. It is for chastening that ye endure. God dealeth with you his sons.

28:19 - 28:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: A kid who doesn't have a father to love him enough to correct him might as well be a bastard child that nobody claims. Some of you parents thought you showed your love by not disciplining your children. God says you trea…

Martin asks how parents would feel if a neighbor plotted to ruin their children. He then applies Proverbs 19:18, stating that a parent who doesn't chasten their kids is, in God's eyes, plotting their destruction.

words to our heart. Proverbs 19, 18. Chasten thy son, seeing there is hope. Set not thy heart on his destruction. You say, what parent would ever set his heart on destroying his own children? God says the parent who doesn't chasten his kids. What would you think if you found out that your neighbor was sitting up night after night, grinning, fidgeting, figuring out ways to ruin your sons and daughters? What would you think, mothers, fathers? What would you think if you found out that your neighbors were sitting up, burning the midnight oil, plotting how to wreck and ruin and destroy your childr...

31:48 - 32:38 Read in full sermon

Driving home: A kid who doesn't have a father to love him enough to correct him might as well be a bastard child that nobody claims. Some of you parents thought you showed your love by not disciplining your children. God says you trea…

Martin expresses a desire to print Proverbs 22:15 ('Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child...') in large, bright letters on classroom walls, highlighting its crucial truth against the 'garbage' of child psychology.

there is hope. Don't set your heart on his destruction. Indicating if you don't chasten him, that's exactly what you're doing. Chapter 22 and verse 15. And oh, how I'd love to print this verse in letters 14 and a half feet high in bright day glow orange paint and hang it up over the walls of every single classroom across our country where the child psychologist spills out his garbage. What does it say? Foolishness. And in the book of Proverbs, foolishness is not stupidity.

32:38 - 33:13 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The rod is a means of grace to save a child from Hell. You want to cooperate with the devil in sending your children to Hell? You say, what do you think I am, preacher? A fiend? You are a fiend.

Martin recounts a childhood game where a friend, Sonny Yates, would yell 'I ain't killed, I'm only wounded' when shot. This is used to comfort parents that when they hear their children's cries during discipline, they are not killing them, but only wounding them, as Solomon implies in Proverbs 23:13-14.

Proverbs 23, 13 and 14. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beat him with the rod, he will not die. When I used to, as a kid, we used to play cops and robbers. And there was a guy across the street, Sonny Yates. Every time you'd go, da-da, da-da-da, you're dead. He couldn't say wounded. He couldn't pronounce the W. And he used to yell out, I ain't killed, I'm only wounded. I ain't killed, I'm only wounded.

34:20 - 34:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't you ignore the book of Proverbs. Get your perspective straight from the book before you look down at that precious little bundle of flesh and begin to do just what comes naturally.

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his parents and their ten children, reflecting on Proverbs 29:17 ('Correct thy son and he will give delight to thy soul'). He attributes his family's well-being and his parents' delight to their loving, firm direction, despite being considered 'borderline poor.'

The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself cause it shame to his mother. Verse 17, correct thy son and he will give thee rest. Yea, he will give delight to thy soul. And I see my mom and my daddy. My daddy just retired last year.

36:44 - 37:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Are you fathers talking to your sons that way? Come on now. Be honest. Are you talking to your sons that way? Are you warning them about feather bedding and laziness?

Martin uses the book of Proverbs, particularly Solomon's address 'My son,' as an example of a father verbally instructing and warning his son about laziness, evil companions, wicked women, and financial pitfalls, demonstrating biblical admonition.

Solomon begins many of those chapters with these words, My son. Here's a daddy sitting down with his son and what's he doing? He's admonishing him. He warns him about laziness.

39:38 - 39:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Get your perspectives of chastening, and instruction not from your own mother and father, but from the scriptures. And whatever they did that was true to the scriptures, copy them. Whatever they failed to do that they sh…

Martin describes his son's natural thoughtfulness towards the 'down and out' but also his tendency to let a door slam on his sister. This illustrates the tedious, detailed work of nurturing character, even in small things, to prepare a child for future relationships (e.g., as a considerate husband).

My friend, you take seriously your role as a father, and you take seriously your role as a father, and you're going to cry out, Lord, who is sufficient for these things. I look at my children, and I see those areas of natural strengths in my son. For instance, recently my wife and I have been working on this. When it comes to seeing the down and out guy, and being willing to give up time and his own selfish interest to help him so he doesn't feel out of place and ill at ease, my son has a very natural and beautiful ability to give himself to someone.

44:23 - 44:54 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin explains that 'of the Lord' means that principles, power, and goals for parenting must come from Christ through His Word, empowered by His grace, and aimed at pleasing Him…

Martin contrasts his daughters' personalities: Beth, naturally open and transparent, and Heidi, withdrawn and a perfectionist who struggles to admit she's wrong. This illustrates the specific, individualized work required to nurture each child's character, preparing them for future roles as wives.

Beth, our youngest, so naturally open. Jesus, transparent as a pane of glass that's just had a dose of Windex on it. Transparent as she can be. She wears her soul right smack out on the end of her nose, you know, right where she is by the look on her face.

46:53 - 47:08 Read in full sermon

The point: What right do I have to hand my kids over five hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year, thirteen years into the hands of people who do not admonish and who do not discipline in the light of the word of God?

Martin uses the analogy of an artist creating a beautiful work, signing it, and then someone pasting over the signature or writing their own name. This illustrates how secular education insults God by removing His 'signature' (His glory and handiwork) from the understanding of His creation.

The fool does not galley in religion. My friend, the moment you say that you can look at God's world, any part of it, in macrocosm when you look at the skies, or microcosm when you look at the cells, and say you can look at it and understand it without the Bible, that's an insult to God, because God says the heavens declare my glory, and the firmament shows my glory, and my handiwork. How would you feel if you were an author, I'm sorry, an artist, and you had created a beautiful work of art, and in the right-hand corner you scribbled your signature, identifying it as the product of your artist...

50:13 - 51:14 Read in full sermon