Your Family life, Part 2

The point: Rear back on your hind legs and say, thus far no further, if extracurricular activities prevent daily family worship.

Martin describes how staggered sports practices for different children can fragment family life and disrupt family worship, illustrating the danger of extracurricular activities.

Just as with husbands and wives, I have five of them. Number one, beware of giving in, into the pressures that would prevent or erode, sorry, I have the wrong page. That's the review that I thought I might do of the husband-wife things. Now I'm on the right page. Beware of the fragmenting influence of extracurricular activities. The fragmenting influence of extracurricular activities. I've lived long enough to see this phenomena develop, and it frightens me, where people get involved, for example, in sports activities, and someone has to be at his or her practice at 4.30, and someone has to be...

8:33 - 9:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Jealously guard specific times for family worship and cohesion from anything intruding upon it.

Martin shares a personal anecdote of turning off the telephone and covering it with a towel from 5:30 to 7:30 PM daily when his children were younger, to ensure uninterrupted family time for worship, play, and prayer, illustrating how to guard family cohesion.

7.30, except on Wednesday night, the telephone was turned off and a towel was thrown over it to remind us that the bell was turned off so that my family knew from 5.30 to 7.30 we have dad to ourselves. No telephone calls. That's back when we had just the one line coming in to the house before I had a separate line in my study. That's when my children were younger. And those are the times when we had to call on God. And that's when we had to call on God. And that's when we had to have wonderful family times to play together, to read, to pray. There was family cohesion. It was impossible in the ...

12:09 - 13:09 Read in full sermon

The point: Beware of the subtle absorption of the world's perspective on the training and discipline of your children, such as the obsession with self-esteem.

Martin critiques the worldly obsession with building children's self-esteem for elementary tasks like tying shoes, arguing that children are born with too much self-esteem and need to deny themselves.

Thirdly, beware of the subtle absorption of the world's perspective on the training and discipline of your children. You've heard me quote it dozens of times over the years. Romans 12 and verse 2, do not let the world squeeze you into its mold, but be continually transformed by the renewing of your mind. And it grieves me, when I see the world's language coming out of the mouths of God's people. For example, this obsession with self-esteem. A little kid ties his shoes and they practically want to build an altar and worship him with, good job, good job, good job, come on. He learns to tie his s...

13:09 - 14:12 Read in full sermon

The point: Beware of the subtle absorption of the world's perspective on the training and discipline of your children, such as the obsession with self-esteem.

Martin contrasts the worldly concept of 'time-out' with biblical admonitions for chastening and instruction, suggesting some are more influenced by 'Super Nanny' than 'Super Solomon'.

most elementary things. Why? Build up their self-esteem Your kids are born with altogether too much self-esteem. That's why they've got to deny themselves and take up a cross if they're ever to be true disciples of Christ. Yes, you're to teach them from the Bible—they have worth and dignity as image-bearers of God, but they have much to be ashamed of as sinners in Adam. When I see Christians saying, Uh-oh, time for time-out. Where do you find time-out in the Bible? You fathers nurture them in the chastening and the admonition of the Lord.

14:12 - 14:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Wives, be 100% committed to the agreed-upon principles of discipline, not letting children get away with bad behavior when the father is absent.

Martin recounts his mother's firm instruction during discipline, 'Give him some more, dad, he's not sweet yet,' illustrating the need for consistent and resolute parental discipline.

And if they don't break beneath it, you say like my mother did, give him some more, dad, he's not sweet yet.

18:35 - 18:42 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not permit the ungoverned, unmonitored, unchecked, and unfiltered use of communication devices by your children.

Martin compares addiction to video games to a heroin addict's craving, illustrating the severe and widespread problem of unmonitored digital entertainment among children.

Beware, dear people, of letting the world squeeze you into its mold with respect to this world. Fifth warning, and here I speak to you as parents, beware of permitting the ungoverned, unmonitored, unchecked, and unfiltered use of the manifold communication devices available to your children. And I'm going to stick my nose in my notes because as Harry lampooned me in his poem, I said, I'm going to stick my nose in my notes because as Harry lampooned me in his poem, I said, I'm going to stick my nose in my notes because as Harry lampooned me in his poem, I have chosen every word carefully. Bewar...

21:47 - 23:14 Read in full sermon

The point: If you have internet access, research and install the best available filters; otherwise, you are a fool.

Martin shares his experience with men in his study who became addicted to pornography after a single image popped up on their computer, illustrating the danger of unfiltered internet access.

If you think that the devil is so fastidious, that he will not cause an image to pop up that a young 14 year old boy with raging hormones sees and then he traces it out and all it takes is one hour in front of pornographic images on a TV on I'm sorry on your computer monitor to be hooked. How do I know I've sat with hooked men in my I've had them sit. In my study, tell me of their addiction. And it all started with an image that popped up. Parents, do you think the devil doesn't know he has that instrument? He's the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who works among the sons of disobed...

25:28 - 26:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Have the moral courage to confront friends who criticize your parents and distance yourself from them.

Martin describes King Rehoboam seeking counsel from his childhood buddies instead of the wise old men who served his father Solomon, illustrating the folly of prioritizing peer influence over older, wiser counsel.

Look at verse 8. But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men that were grown up with him, and stood before him. He went to his peers, his buddies that he played marbles with when he was a kid. And he played stickball with them, and maybe occasionally had a game of softball with them, or played touch football.

34:21 - 34:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Block off avenues to your mind from anything that does not come through the filter of God's law, bringing every thought captive to Christ.

Martin contrasts his life as a saved senior in high school, pitied by peers for not joining their parties and drinking sprees, with seeing those same peers 25 years later at a reunion, 'burnt out, bloated, blistered, blasted,' illustrating the emptiness of a worldly life compared to the blessedness of following Christ.

Oh how they pitied me that I didn't go to their parties. They pitied me that I had no desire to go on their drinking sprees. They pitied me. They looked upon me as someone whose life was so truncated.

40:18 - 40:33 Read in full sermon

The point: If you dread God's judgment, flee for refuge to Christ.

Martin uses the Old Testament cities of refuge as an analogy for fleeing to Christ for refuge from God's judgment, illustrating how Christ provides safety for those who run to Him.

If God but stopped your ticker. Well then, in Hebrews 6, 18, it describes Christians as those who have fled for refuge to Christ. A beautiful analogy of the cities of refuge in the Old Testament. If you committed manslaughter, you killed someone unwittingly.

46:45 - 47:06 Read in full sermon