Family Worship, Use of TV

The point: Be convinced of the absolute necessity of planned family worship, just as much as planned meals, rest, and clothing are part of family life.

The analogy of planned meals, rest, and clothing for physical development is used to illustrate the absolute necessity of planned family worship for spiritual development, emphasizing that a home without such planning would be a 'terrible shambles.'

If the home is the most powerful formative influence upon children, then it follows that prayer and the reading and explanation of the scriptures should have a vital role in that home. What would the physical development of your children be without planned meals, without planned periods of rest, without any plan to clothe the children and provide warmer clothing in the winter and cooler clothing in the summer? Any home, if you can imagine it, that has no planned meals, no planned periods of rest, no planned pattern of dressing the children, would be a terrible shambles. Any family, and in the ...

4:27 - 5:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure that family worship is accompanied by a consistent Christian example in your daily life, to avoid producing hypocrites and cynics.

Jesus' words about the Pharisees sitting on Moses' seat are used to explain that they taught God's Word correctly but failed in their example, highlighting the danger of hypocrisy in parental leadership during family worship.

And I'm reading now verses 1 through 3. Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. Now, what He meant by that is that they didn't have a chair that they exported out of the wilderness and they sat down on it. What He means is they stand in the place or they sit in the place of expounding the law of Moses.

6:23 - 6:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure that family worship is accompanied by a consistent Christian example in your daily life, to avoid producing hypocrites and cynics.

The analogy of a 'hypocrite-producing factory' is used to describe a home where family worship occurs without a consistent Christian example from the parents, leading children to cynicism and disrespect for God.

He says, Follow their teaching, but don't follow their example. Now, if you want a sure road to producing little hypocrites and little cynics and people who have no respect for God and for His Word, then just find a home where there is some semblance of family worship without an equally valid semblance of a consistent Christian example by the parents.

7:12 - 7:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Involve children of sufficient age in family worship by having them read Scripture, answer questions, and make applications.

A personal anecdote about his daughter Heidi connecting a memory verse from Proverbs about pride to the story of the Tower of Babel illustrates the effectiveness of Scripture memorization in family worship.

And it's interesting how they begin to come out in our family devotions tonight. We were dealing, we're reading now through Genesis, and we came to the Tower of Babel, and the pride where they wanted to build a tower up to heaven, and how God hates pride. And Heidi says, Daddy, like our memory verse in Proverbs says, these six things do the Lord hate, yea, seven an abomination, and a proud look. Well, she was able to make, you see, the reference from what she'd been memorizing in the morning to what we were studying in the Word of God at night.

21:44 - 22:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn and sing hymns together as a family during devotions, making family singing a part of children's experience.

An extended quotation from Isaac Watts' hymn 'Against Pride in Clothes' is used to demonstrate the profound spiritual lessons that can be taught through hymns in family worship, particularly in counteracting worldly values.

And then, if at all possible, if any one of you in the family can carry a tune, you ought to learn hymns in your family devotions. That family singing ought to be a part of the children's experience. And this Hymns for Children, by Isaac Watts, which we have on our book table, is one of the most wonderful little collections of hymns you'll find anywhere. When Watts was sick on one occasion, during his period of confinement, he wrote these hymns specifically for children.

27:31 - 28:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Detailed suggestions for family worship activities are provided, including Scripture memorization (especially Proverbs), involving older children in reading and discussion, using…

An extended quotation from Isaac Watts' hymn 'Against Quarreling and Fighting' is used to show how hymns can teach children practical Christian virtues like love and peace, contrasting human behavior with that of animals.

Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for God hath made them so. Let bears and lions growl and fight, for tis their nature too. But children, you should never let such angry passions rise. Your little hands were never made to tear each other's eyes.

30:34 - 30:52 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Detailed suggestions for family worship activities are provided, including Scripture memorization (especially Proverbs), involving older children in reading and discussion, using…

A personal anecdote about his daughter Beth requesting hymns whenever they drove on Mountain Avenue illustrates how children can be conditioned to enjoy and participate in family singing.

If you're not familiar, excellent little thing. And the kids enjoy this. The kids enjoy learning hymns. And then when they can sing it without looking at the book, and we've made it a practice always on our way to church Sunday morning to sing the hymns that we've been learning.

31:33 - 31:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Begin to conduct family worship, learning by doing and adjusting as you find weak and strong spots.

The analogies of a child learning to walk and Martin learning to roller skate are used to illustrate that proficiency in family worship, like any skill, is gained through consistent practice, trial, and error, not just theoretical knowledge.

I don't care how grounded they may be in Scripture. The only way you learn is by doing. And if we never did anything until we could do it very well, most of us would be doing nothing and would have learned little. When the child starts to walk, he's very awkward at it.

33:40 - 33:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Parents, personally discipline your own use of the TV, ensuring it is your servant and not your master.

The analogy of a bleary-eyed drunkard trying to teach temperance or a harlot instructing on moral purity is used to highlight the hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of parents who lack self-discipline in TV use trying to guide their children.

By that I mean the parents themselves must, must know that they have disciplined their own use of the TV. Titus 2 and verse 7 says, in all things showing thyself a pattern of good works. Can you imagine a bleary-eyed drunkard trying to teach his son how to be tempered in the use of alcohol? Can you imagine a harlot trying to instruct her daughter in the ways of moral purity?

41:05 - 41:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Exercise firm parental control over the TV, recognizing your responsibility for the mental, emotional, and spiritual influences on your children.

An extended analogy of parents allowing rabid dogs, snakes, and rotten food in their home is used to powerfully illustrate the greater spiritual and emotional harm caused by allowing undisciplined TV influences on children, questioning such parents' love.

There must be personal parental discipline. Secondly, there must be firm parental control of the TV. Just as you as a parent are responsible for the physical influences which shape your child, so you are responsible for the mental, emotional, and spiritual influences. What would you think of a person in the Trinity Baptist Church who professed to love his children, but it became known to all of us that, number one, these parents allowed throughout the house at will.

44:23 - 45:03 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But the influences of the TV upon the mind and the spirit are such, listen carefully, that some of them, if they're the wrong influences, even the grace of God cannot erase this side of heaven.

An extended quotation from a Presbyterian theologian, with 'TV' substituted for 'novel,' is used to argue that television programs, by depicting crime and vice, expose viewers to dangers similar to bad company, corrupting their hearts and familiarizing them with wickedness.

ungovernment-governed influence upon his children, I seriously question that parent's love for the child, and I seriously question him in any degree whatsoever. A Presbyterian theologian, writing on the baneful influence of novels, says some things that apply so powerfully to the influence of the television. Listen to what he says, and I'll just put the word TV where he uses the word novel. But these television programs, whether intended to teach heresy and false philosophy or not,

47:09 - 47:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Allow nothing to be watched on TV unless you are thoroughly familiar with that particular program, evaluating it against Philippians 4:8.

An example of a nature special with a jazz musical score is used to illustrate how subtle, anti-Christian influences can be present even in seemingly innocent programs, emphasizing the need for parental discernment and prior knowledge of content.

And it's amazing how subtle this is. Let me give you an illustration on this TV guide. There was a special on tonight, one of these nature specials showing off the coast of Australia one of the natural coral reefs that acts like a breaks up the heavy seas and protects this particular coast of Australia and this thing was to be in full color we don't have a color TV probably was beautiful and it was the kind of thing you'd love to have your family sit down and watch to see the beauties of what God has made. But right at the bottom it said

52:40 - 53:25 Read in full sermon