Our Duty Toward the Rising Generation (1)

Introduction: The Manifesto's Tenth Affirmation and Benevolence Offering

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, May 1st, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow with me, please, in your own Bibles as I read two sections from the sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy and chapter six. In this portion of the word of God, God is speaking through his servant Moses to the nation of Israel as they are on the threshold of entering into the land of Canaan under the direction of Joshua, Moses' successor in primary leadership in the nation of Israel. And in that portion where God is underscoring the great concerns of his people.

1:02 And in that portion where God is underscoring the great concerns of his people as they are on the threshold of entering into the land of Canaan under the direction of Joshua, Moses' successor in primary leadership in the nation of Israel. And with all your soul and with all your might and these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart and you shall teach them diligently unto your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes and you shall write them upon the doorpost of your house and upon your gates.

2:17 And now verses 20 through 25 of the same chapter.

2:32 And now verses 20 through 25 of the same chapter. To give us the land which he swore unto our fathers and the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all this commandment before the Lord our God.

3:32 To give us the land which he swore unto our fathers and the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at this day and it shall be righteousness unto us if we observe to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always that he might preserve us alive as at But on that particular Lord's Day, as part of our worship to God, the entirety of our gifts and offerings will be designated as a benevolence offering for the Trinity Christian School. Now, it has been our practice for a number of years to designate at least one of the public ministries on the Lord's Day prior to receiving this annual benevolence offering to preach on some aspect of the biblical principles which undergird the endeavor that finds expression in the Trinity Christian School.

4:49 And we do this so that as we prayerfully anticipate what we ought to do, if anything, as a freewill offering to the Lord, our thinking and our praying may be shaped by the teaching of the Word of God. Well, in the providence of God, we have come to the final affirmation in the manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church, an affirmation which does indeed lie at the heart of the very concerns which have resulted in the establishment and the ongoing, ministry of the Trinity Christian School. So, while I am carrying on in this series on the manifesto, intending to bring it to a conclusion this month, I'm also bringing this annual message in preparation for the benevolence offering. And the tenth tenet or affirmation of the manifesto is this, that we are determined to establish maintain and transmit an understanding and practice of our biblical duty towards the rising generations of our children.

6:16 Now, I've labored, I believe literally hours in the plural, to state this biblical concept in this way. And one of the problems in laboring to state it this way, is that as I have anticipated, coming to this tenth affirmation in the manifesto, other terminology has been fixed in my mind, and I wrestled with how to structure the affirmation around that terminology, and after building and smashing and building and smashing many ways of expressing it, I finally gave up some of the terminology, such as two generation vision, and started all over, and this is the result, and I believe it expresses what we have been committed to as a church, what we must continue to be committed to, and what, by the grace of God, we must seek to pass on to rising generations, and that is a determination to establish, to maintain, and to transmit. That is clearly to set something forth and put it in place, that's establishing it, but then to maintain it, not to lose it by a kind of spiritual atrophy,

7:43 not to lose it by simply assuming it is in place in our thinking, and is operating in our perspectives, but we must be determined to establish and to maintain, and then not only to maintain, but to transmit two things, an understanding and practice, a biblical cognitive grasp upon certain aspects of biblical truth, and the practice of that truth, and what is the reference point of that understanding and practice, namely, our biblical duty towards the rising generations of our children. So putting it all together, here is the final affirmation in our manifesto, we are determined to establish, maintain and transmit an understanding and practice of our biblical duty towards the rising generations of our children. Now in taking up this most sobering aspect of our life together as a church, I must make several introductory qualifications at the outset. Qualification number one is this,

Introductory Qualifications: Uncertainty of Future Generations and Human Inability

9:11 in making this affirmation I am not assuming that there will necessarily be successive generations of our children. Though I have used the terminology with reference to our duty towards the rising generations of our children, I am not assuming that there will necessarily be successive generations of our children represented in this church family. As we contemplated last Lord's Day, the time of our Lord's return is uncertain. And in such an hour as we think about it, or as we think not, the Son of Man comes. To put it bluntly, some of you may not live long enough prior to the return of Christ ever to bear children or to see your grandchildren. Furthermore, there are dispositions in God's providence that may cause such upheavals as will result in the sweeping away of the majority of this present generation of the members of Trinity Baptist Church. Earthquake, famine, and plague are no respecter of persons.

10:36 However, having made that qualification, we shall see in our study of the Scriptures, God expects us, as part of our present duty, without any sense of presumption regarding the future, to think, to plan, and to labor in terms of the rising generations of our children. Now, in a day of crass me-ism and now-ism, such language sounds strange. You and I live in the age in which irresponsible politicians and grasping, selfish men and women have strapped unborn generations with a massive national debt and with what will be an inevitable economic collapse of our nation, barring the intervention of God. People are so crassly concerned for the almighty buck in the present hour that they are willing to pander to the lowest, most base appetites of men in the name of entertainment. Whether it's television, or records, or the motion picture industry, and to even think in terms of a concern for people

12:03 who yet have no existence is foreign to the climate of our day. But it is not foreign to the climate of the Word of God. And the second qualification I want to make is this. In making this affirmation, I'm not saying that we can ensure the vision and commitment to the duties of the rising generations.

12:27 I have stated we are determined to establish, maintain, and transmit an understanding and practice of our biblical duty toward the rising generations of our children. But in saying that, I am not in any way inferring that we have the power to implant and to implement that biblical vision and practice with respect to the rising generations. God alone is the ultimate guardian and perpetuator of His truth. And each generation must know the divine intervention of God's sovereign grace. For men who have an internal conviction of doing the will of God are men and women who are born of the Spirit. And we are told in John 1 and verse 13 that that new birth is not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but it is of God. However, as with the health of our bodies, a matter that is eventually in the hands of God, there are no guarantees that we shall live for another week, another year, another decade.

13:52 It may be that some of us will discover in the next month that we have the beginnings of a deadly tumor that will take us to our grave in a matter of days or weeks. Nonetheless, while fully acknowledging that God holds our times in His hands, we have a duty to know and respect the principles of good nutrition, weight control, and basic cardiovascular fitness. And we are to live as an extension of the sixth commandment in the light of those principles, not in any way thinking they will guarantee us 80 plus years of life or that we will have the best of health through the rest of our days, but recognizing ours is to do our duty and to leave the issue with God. Well, in the same way, my brothers and sisters, you and I have a duty to the rising generations of our children. And we have been in our life and ministry over the past quarter of a century, and I trust sitting here today we are, present tense, determined both to establish, maintain, and transmit an understanding and practice of our biblical duty

The Biblical Description of Our Duty: Two-Pronged Submission

15:19 towards the rising generations of our children. Now as I attempt to open this up this morning, consider with me first of all with those qualifications conditioning all that follows the biblical description of our duty towards the rising generations of our children. The biblical description of our duty toward the rising generations of our children. And perhaps in no portion of the word of God are these duties more clearly and repeatedly addressed than in the book of Deuteronomy.

16:02 And perhaps some would debate the book of Proverbs. He either takes precedence over the book of Deuteronomy or is equal to it or second to it, and that I will not debate. But perhaps the richest seedbed of divine, divine instruction with respect to this matter is indeed the book of Deuteronomy and of course the book of Proverbs. And we're going to look at four passages in the book of Deuteronomy.

16:34 I had originally thought of going through them, had even structured my notes, picking out one of the major strands of emphasis and then going back and picking out the second, but they so overlap and interpenetrate it was a very awkward way of handling the texts. So what I want you to see with me in each of these passages that there is basically a two-pronged duty with respect to the future generations of the children in Israel. As God is preparing them to go in and take their inheritance in the promised land, He constantly underscores these two things. He says to His people that they must seek to experience a pattern of universal submission to the Word of God in their own lives and secondly, they must seek to command a pattern of universal submission to the Word of God in the lives of the rising generations. Now notice those two emphases in these four passages in the book of Deuteronomy. First of all, Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 1 and 2. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 1 and 2.

18:00 This is the beginning of this rather lengthy exhortation given to the children of Israel after God has given directions with respect to what they are to do and has made known that Moses is not to go into the promised land with them. Here are the first words that come to the people of God in this setting. And now, O Israel, hearken unto the statutes and unto the ordinances which I teach you to do them, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you. You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. So the first issue that God underscores to His people is this. As you stand on this threshold of the conquest of Canaan, your primary concern that I am laying upon your consciences as you go in to possess this land which God is to give you

19:28 is this. You shall hearken to the statutes and to the ordinances with a view to doing them. You are to hearken with a view to implementing them. Verse 2.

19:46 They are not to alter, they are not to pare down the ordinances and the statutes of God. They are not to add to the word which He commanded, nor are they to diminish from it. But they are to keep the commandments which the Lord God Himself has commanded them. Verse 5.

20:10 I have taught you statutes and ordinances even as the Lord my God commands them. The Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the midst of the land whither you go in to possess it. So as God is preparing the nation to go into the land, His first point of emphasis to the adult generation of the people of God is this. You must seek to experience a pattern of universal submission to the word of God in your own lives.

20:49 What I have said through my servant Moses is to regulate all of your life. You are not to stand as a judge over my word and say it is incomplete and add to it out of the stuff of your own imaginations or your own desires. Nor are you to say that something I have revealed as part of your duty is irrelevant, unnecessary, inconsequential, and tear away what you judge to be irrelevant. No.

21:21 The standard of your obedience is to be my revealed statutes and laws and commandments. And you are to accept nothing less than a heart commitment to universal obedience to the entirety of my revealed will. You are not to add to it. You are not to take away from it.

21:46 Now, chapter 6. And here in chapter 6 we see the second strand of emphasis entering in and being retained in the subsequent passages that we will examine. Deuteronomy 6. Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances which the Lord your God commanded to teach you that you might do them in the land whither you go over to possess it, and that you might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you.

22:27 Now at this point it's an echo of what we have read from chapter 4. Here God makes it plain again that he is mandating a pattern of universal obedience to his word. There is no doubt that we are bound as they said whatsoever the Lord says we will do it. And God says whatever I said you shall do it.

22:53 And this will be the manifestation of the heart of true fear of myself expressed in this diligent pattern of universal obedience to my revealed will. But now God doesn't stop there in this passage. He says that you might fear the Lord, keep his statutes which I command you, you and your son and your son's son all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged. Hear therefore O Israel and observe to do it that it may be well with you and that you may increase mightily as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey. God intimates that in giving this direction he is thinking also of the successive generations of Israelites and that what he mandates for that living generation of adult Israelites namely a pattern of universal obedience to his revealed will he is also mandating for their sons and their sons' sons. Now verse 4 Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God

24:22 with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart and you shall teach them diligently unto your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house when you walk by the way when you lie down when you rise up you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand and they shall be full frontlets between your eyes and you shall write them upon the door post of your house and upon your gates and when your son asks you saying what mean the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances God then says you shall give these answers to that question in order to ensure in order to instruct the judgment of that rising generation with respect to the unique relationship that I Jehovah have entered into with you my people whom I took out of bondage from Egypt and took unto myself as a peculiar people you must pass on not only the statutes but the nature of the unique relationship to the living God within which the statutes were given and so here in the Deuteronomy 6 passage we see that second strand of emphasis we must not only seek

25:51 to experience a pattern of universal submission to the word of God in our own lives but we must seek to command a pattern of universal submission to the word of God in the lives of the rising generation

The Necessity of Personal Obedience and Commanding Instruction

26:11 and surely in our own minds as it wassecret to know God but we must step away from the union of two horrible people so let's close the До Garcia and then to translate in the response which begins to Jsın scenario one of the most thin lines in the Bible of truth as follows comes a point when this in the chapter of Deuteronomy chapter 3 own heart and his own soul. You shall bind them for a sign upon your hand and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. That is, whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever you look at, you are to view all of life in the light of my revealed will for you, my people. There is no part of life that you are to regard as secular, as divorced from my eye and my will and my purpose. But you're not to stop there. And you shall teach them your children, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall write them upon the doorpost

27:31 of your house and upon your gates. In other words, your children should never remember

27:40 that you called your children beloved children for those who do favor of those who are close as Abraham, Goliath, and Elephan W JEFFU aeck. Welcome. Now, let us look again into Exodus locations. Now, in Exodus, that you may leave your children there and put them on Healthcare, Your Life Because your children may not be a father to you at this time and perhaps your children do well.

28:07 Why? of this house you to write my statutes upon the doorpost and when you're out on the walk with your son or with your daughter and questions are asked about this or that or the other you are to speak of my statutes in this informal way in this ad hoc way there is to be this commitment to command a pattern of universal submission to the word of god in the lives of the rising generation and then in deuteronomy chapter 32 this two-fold emphasis that is spread out in these larger passages comes to a very sharp focus in deuteronomy chapter 32 at the end of the song of moses we read in verse two and moses made an end of speaking all these words to israel and he said unto them now notice how these two principles are given in their distilled essence in this one verse set your heart unto all the words which i testify unto you this day set your heart onto all the words which i testify unto you this day set your heart

29:34 Unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, you are to have a heart commitment of universal obedience to the revealed will of Jehovah. But you are not to stop there, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. Now notice, Moses does not say that you being committed to a life of universal obedience to the totality of the revealed will of God, are as part of a broad liberal education of your children to set before them as one of many options the commands of God. That foul notion that we are to set before children, if we give them any so-called religious and moral instruction, only our perspectives as one of many which they are free to choose as though they come to that choice,

30:53 is unbiased, is a notion from the pit of hell. We come into this world to rebellion against God, with a bias of a carnal mind that is enmity against God, with a conscience that already very early seeks to skill the voice of God in accusation when they do wrong. They come with passions and appetites defiled and polluted by sin. And we are not to set before them as a possible option.

31:32 God says to Moses, set your heart unto all the words that I testify unto you, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all of the words of this law. But you say, Pastor, until they're saved they won't do them from the heart. That's right. But as long as they're saved, they won't do them from the heart.

31:57 That's right. If they're under your roof, they better at least do them externally. For there you bring in the whole biblical doctrine of the rod of correction. Foolishness, not inherent potential for greatness, but foolishness, a positive bent to sin and evil, is bound up in the heart of the child, and the rod of correction drives it far from him.

The Legacy of Godliness: Living Examples for Future Generations

32:25 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. Know the essence of our duty with respect to the rising generations is number one. And you must always start here, or you'll create a generation of skeptics and cynics. We start by saying what my children need, and what my grandchildren need, and what unborn generations need, whenever the memory of my life casts its shadow upon them.

33:05 They need my commitment to a life of universal obedience to the revealed will of God more than anything else. They need in the living, fleshed-out reality of your life and mine what it means to be a covenant keeper. What it means to belong to Jehovah by right of creation and right of purchase through the blood of Christ. What it means to be filled with the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit.

33:47 What it means for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church, and for a wife to be submissive to her husband as the church is subject to Christ. What it means to be light and silver. What it means to be salt. What it means to be blameless and harmless, shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

34:09 They need to know what those biblical directives mean as they see them fleshed out in your life and in mine. They need to know what the Bible means when it says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. When they see you as an adult humbling yourself before the child, to whom you spoke a sharp word. It was not a word spoken under the impulse and control of the Holy Spirit.

34:39 But it was a word spoken under the impulse of your own uncontrolled spirit. You know it. They knew it. Anybody impartially listening would know it.

34:51 They need to know what it is for someone to humble himself and say to his son, to his daughter, to his wife, to his family, daddy, hubby, spoke in a way that was displeasing to God. I've asked God to forgive me and the blood of Christ to cleanse me. Will you forgive me? Not mumble in a half-hearted, reluctant way, I'm sorry.

35:18 Been a rough day. That's no more confession of sin. And take all of the directives of the word of God. All that they say.

35:29 That a Christian is to be and to do in his relationship to God, to his family members, to society. And what does the rising generation need more than anything else? It needs to see living examples of men and women committed to nothing less than a life of universal obedience. You see, it is in that sense that Robert Murray McShane said, What my people need more than anything else is my own personal godliness.

36:07 Now, did he mean they could be saved by watching his life? No. What he meant is it's unlikely they'd be saved if as they watched his life, his life did not embody what he preached to them. And dear people, if this vision does not burn within our breast, that under God, humanly speaking, the only way we have grounds to plead with God, the only way we have grounds to plead with God, the only way we have grounds to plead with God, with any degree of faith and expectancy, that the things we love and the truths we hold dear will be loved and held by the rising generations is if we give them the legacy of God-level, honest, Biblical reality in the lives we live before them. Rob them of that! And the more effective the ministry they sit under, the more likely they're to become cynics and skeptics. But it's not enough, you see.

The Perpetual Relay Race: Transmitting the Baton of Truth

37:10 It is not enough that we seek with all our hearts to love him, with all our souls to fear him, to obey him, to make his word the limits of what we expect by his grace to be and to do. We'll not add to it nor subtract from it. We're prepared to say with the psalmist, I esteem all of thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. They need not only our commitment to a pattern of universal submission to the word of God in our own lives, but they need, secondly, they need to have those of us placed in positions of responsibility with respect to them, commanding a pattern of universal submission to the word of God in their lives as well. You can't command if you don't instruct, but our instruction must always lead to the understanding of their duty. May I liken it as I try to think of some way to illustrate this principle. It's as though God has placed us in a perpetual relay race.

38:33 And you know, in a relay race, not the kind you have out in the backyard here, but the kind you have when you have your field day, and the kind they have in college and high school athletic events, and in professional track and field meets. In the relay race, you have a baton, and if it's a 4x100 or a 4x400 or 4x440, a man who starts the race holds the baton, and he has a responsibility to hold the baton, to know how far he is to run, complete his part of the race. But then he has another responsibility. He must safely place the baton into the hand of the man who is to run the next segment of the race. Now follow closely. And that man who runs the next segment of the race must not only know how to receive the baton, how to run his part of the race.

39:38 If he comes to the end of it, and just throws the baton up and says, good, I received it, did my part of the race, my job's done, you lose. I don't care if he's 15 meters in front of everybody else. The race is not complete until all four have received the baton, have run their part of the race, and the last man crosses it. Well, in that way, God has put us in this perpetual relay race.

40:10 And he says to you and to me and our generation, receive the baton of truth, but receive it not as something you merely hold external to you, but let it master your life and run your segment of the race in the strength and power of my spirit, looking off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith, or of faith, so that when you come to the end of your segment of the race, you can say with Paul, I have run the race, I have finished my course. But you see, before Paul finished it, the very letter in which he said that, you know what he was doing? He was passing on the baton to Timothy. And he was saying, Timothy, this is what you're to do, and you're to say, and here are the dangers that are coming, and here are the problems you will face. And he not only told Timothy the part of the race he was to run, he said, Timothy, don't forget to train them in how to pass on the baton to others the things that you've heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men who shall run the next segment of the race, who shall be able to teach others also. And dear people, if that vision can grip us, that we are here but a short time,

41:36 and God in grace has placed the baton of truth in our hands, in our persons, that we may do up with it, not play with it, simply analyze it, but with it in our hands, run our segment of the race, but not run irresponsibly as though our segment is all there is. No, there will be other segments of successive generations until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must not be so irresponsibly taken up with our segment of the race that we have no thought or concern for those who will run after us. And be running until the return of Christ. And so I say, turning to the Scriptures, we discover that our basic responsibility with respect to the succeeding generations is twofold. It is to seek to experience a pattern of universal submission to the Word of God in our own lives, and then seek to command a pattern of universal submission to the Word of God in the lives of the rising generations. Now very quickly, just look at a couple of examples, a couple of biblical illustrations

Biblical Illustrations of Fulfilling This Duty

43:00 of those who fulfilled this duty to the rising generation of their children. Consider in the book of Genesis what God says about Abraham. Abraham singled out, called out of Ur of the Chaldees in sovereign grace from an idol-worshiping family to be the very father of the faithful. And God says in Genesis 18, 19, I have known him, that is Abraham, I have regarded him with distinguishing love and affection and purpose, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice to the end that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him. This is an amazing passage. God had spoken things to Abraham that incorporated generations and generations to come. And he says I have set my love and my saving purposes towards Abraham

44:26 to this end. The God who ordains the ends ordains the means that he may command his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice. Abraham was not a man who imbibed the notion, well, I've come to these convictions that God revealed himself to me and God has special purposes for me. But who am I to impose the ways of this God upon my children?

45:00 They must be free to make their own choices or after a hyper-Calvinistic perspective, well, since they are not the children of God until they come to personal faith as I have, I cannot make them pray for their prayer would be hypocrisy. I cannot make them do the revealing of the sealed will of God since they are not doing it from the heart. So I'll just leave them be until God reveals himself to them as he did to me. No, God says to this end if I known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him.

45:35 Abraham recognized that within the precincts of his household, his children, his servants, those who were providentially under his roof were the proper subjects of his commanding and directing them into the ways of God. Even as did Joshua when he said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But Joshua, suppose someone in your house doesn't want to serve the Lord from his heart. He says, as long as he's in my house, he will serve God externally if not internally.

46:11 Because in my house, God's word is law and God's word rules. I want to look at an old man and his perspectives on retirement who caught this vision. What a contrast from today's lust for retirement that means playing golf every day and sleeping till 10 in the morning and fishing three times a week. Here's an old man, an old man in great distress.

46:40 His troubles, his trials, his opposition from the ungodly has not ceased simply because he's old. He's having to run to God as his refuge. He's having to cry to God to protect him. He says in verse 7, I'm as a wonder unto many, but you are my strong refuge.

47:01 Verse 10 of Psalm 71, My enemies speak concerning me and they watch for my soul. Take counsel together saying, God has forsaken him. Pursue and take him for there's none to deliver. Oh God, be not far from me.

47:16 Oh my God, make haste to help me. Here's an old man in rough straits. Someone who's borne the battle in the heat of the day and now is coming to the twilight of his life and he's having to cry to God to protect him and deliver him. And what is he asking God to do this for?

47:36 Look at verse 17. Oh God, you have taught me from my youth and hitherto up till now I've declared your wondrous works. You've taught me. You've taught me.

47:47 I've embraced your truth. I've sought to live by it. I've sought to declare it. Yea, even when I'm old and gray-headed.

47:56 Oh God, forsake me not until I have declared your strength unto the next generation. Your might to everyone that is to come. He's asking God to be with him, to deliver him, to strengthen him. To what end?

48:18 That he might discharge a debt to the following generation until I've declared your strength to the next generation. Your might to everyone that is to come. Another example of someone who had this vision and practiced these perspectives, Proverbs chapter 4. Here Solomon is speaking to his sons.

48:46 And he says, Hear my sons. Proverbs 4.1 Hear my sons the instruction of a father and attend to no understanding for I give you good doctrine. Do not forsake my law.

49:02 Now notice where he learned how to entreat his sons to embrace the law of God as the rule of their lives. For I was a son unto my father, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. And he taught me and said unto me, Let your heart retain my words. Keep my commandments and live.

49:26 Get wisdom, get understanding. Forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not and she will preserve you. Love her and she will keep you.

49:37 Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom, yea, with all your getting. Get understanding. He says, Look, my sons, I'm doing to you what my own father did to me.

49:51 And I'm not a twisted, somehow horribly psychologically restricted man because I was channeled into a way of righteousness and channeled into a way of truth and channeled into right angled convictions about right and wrong and truth and error and God and the devil and sin and righteousness. As a mature man, he's grateful that he had a father who gave him authoritative instruction in true wisdom, in true understanding and who pressed him to retain these things in his heart. You see, kids, you ask, Well, why do mom and dad press me with the Ten Commandments and why do they judge this that I do to be right and that to be wrong and show me from the Bible? Can't they just sort of give me a little slack? No, we can't. Because God's commanded us to command you.

50:59 We're not to leave you to find your own way. We're not to leave you to figure out life on your own. We claim to believe this book and this book tells us that we are not only to receive the Word of God as the law for our own lives, but we are to command that law to you who are put within the sphere of our parental influence. And there's a beautiful example and I turn to only this final one in the New Testament.

51:31 There we have highlighted the influence of two godly women upon a man who becomes very prominent in the pages of the New Testament. We're just looking now at several examples, biblical illustrations of those who fulfilled this duty to the rising generation. In 2 Timothy chapter 1, Paul writing to his beloved Timothy says that he longs to see him, verse 4, remembering his tears. Verse 5, having been reminded, now notice, of the unfeigned faith that is in you.

52:14 Having been reminded, Timothy, of faith that I cannot help but judge to be the real thing. Not like the faith of Simon Magus that time proved to be a sham faith. But, Timothy, I've seen you over a long enough period in enough circumstances to believe that your faith is genuine faith and it's faith that first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. And I am persuaded in you also.

52:48 Three generations. Grandmother, mother, and now Timothy. And how was that faith wrought in his heart? Well, he tells him later on in this very epistle, chapter 3 and verse 14, Abide in the things that you have learned and been assured of knowing of whom you have learned them.

53:12 Remember the people who taught you and in the light of their evident manifestation of the power of truth when they handed on the truth. Remember these things and that from literally a nursing babe, a breathos, from a babe in arms you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. How was unfeigned faith wrought in Timothy? By means of the teaching of the word of God from a mother and a grandmother whose lives manifested the power of that saving word in their own life experience. Now are we guaranteed that if every grandmother who has unfeigned faith who has a daughter has unfeigned faith will eventually have a grandson no, we have no guarantee. The book of Proverbs is full of the doctrine of the foolish son. The one who hates instruction the one who casts off everything he has been taught.

54:31 But you see that doesn't affect what the duty of the grandmother and the mother is. God's electing purposes are God's business. The duty we have to the rising generations is our business. Never, never, never either pry into or rest upon some twisted doctrine of the place of the sovereign decrees of God when it comes to our duty with respect to the rising generations.

Concluding Observations: Gospel, Family, and Trinity Christian School

55:08 Well having considered briefly the biblical description of our duty to the rising generation having looked at some biblical examples of those who fulfilled this duty. Now just briefly in conclusion several observations. Observation number one. Do you see why we continually press the privileges and promises of the gospel upon you?

55:34 You see why a constant emphasis upon the necessity of having direct personal dealings with Christ is so vital not only for the state of your own soul but for the future generations. Because you see if the future generation needs first of all men and women in this generation who have embraced a pattern of universal obedience to God's revealed will it's only true Christians that fit that description. And true Christians are made when God makes the gospel the power of God unto salvation. And that's why no matter what the text no matter what the passage you cannot go long in this place whoever is preaching without the issue of the need for conversion the need for the new birth the need for repentance and faith being pressed upon you. Why? Because it's only when the gospel lives in our ears and in our hearts and is made effectual by the power of the Holy Ghost that there will be a generation of men and women whose lives are marked by a commitment to universal obedience to the precepts of Almighty God. Secondly, do you see why we periodically preach on matters related to the family and parental duties?

56:59 Why do we have whole series on the duties of parents and the training of our children? Why do we have conferences and retreats where the duties of mothers and the duties of fathers are underscored again and again? Because the enemy knows how strategic this aspect of biblical truth is and he'll do everything to get us to hold these things off in a distance and to begin to have our own obedience to them eroded. And if Peter felt it necessary as an apostle to stir up the minds of his writers by way of remembrance though they knew the things he was writing and were established in them surely we are not wiser or more influential than apostles and we must stir up your minds by way of remembrance. And the final observation do you see why Trinity Christian School exists? There are many parents who do not believe that they are competent to administer the general education of their children. Some do.

58:08 And some believe their circumstances are such that they not only can but ought to home school their children. And our hats are off to all who commit themselves to that endeavor and we pray God's blessing upon them. But there are others who do not in sober self-assessment believe that it is in the best interest of their children in the best interest of their own domestic situation and other factors to seek to impart a general education to their children. However, they do not want to place that young moldable child in a framework where history is taught with no sovereign God upon his throne who sets up one and puts down another. They don't want to put their kids in a framework where history is taught as though it's a series of events and happenings and people and places and personalities but there's no rhyme or reason to it all. It just happened because it happened because that's the way it happened. They don't want to cultivate a mind regarding history that does not seek to see the hand of God and the purpose of God.

59:23 They do not want to place their moldable, pliable children into social relationships where behavior is monitored by the sliding scale of the current fads of behavior opinions by the so-called experts. They want them in a framework where their consciences are honed by the law of God as they interact with other students where they are thinking in terms of what God has called sin and what God has called virtue. They don't want them in a context where the natural sciences are taught without the God of creation whose fingerprints are everywhere in his created order. They don't want molding models before their children who don't know God and who can't reflect a life of universal obedience to God. For Jesus said it is enough for the disciple or the learner to be as his teacher. There is the molding influence of a life and they do not want as the models for their children those who themselves are not under the discipline of the word of God. And so in God's providence some nine years ago God was pleased to bring to pass a commitment on the part of a group of men and sufficient parents to launch Trinity Christian School.

60:49 Well it's been around long enough that all of the unrealistic idealism that some of you had has been blown to smithereens and I told you it would. Some of you thought I was probably just a little bit jaundiced but you found out teachers bring their remaining sin into the classroom. They bring it into their relationship with your children. Your children bring their unregenerate hearts into the classroom and those that are saved bring their remaining sin into the classroom.

61:18 And so there are tensions between students between students and teachers between teacher and teacher between teachers and administrators between the board and parents. Yes, that's right. So what? So what?

61:39 Would you think it would be anything other than that? But you see the difference is this. When there is such a tension how is it resolved? By somebody lying?

61:49 Somebody manipulating? No. By sitting down with the word of God and seeking to resolve the tension in a biblical manner. By exercising the love that covers a multitude of sins.

62:02 By seeking to implement the biblical principles in honor prefer one another in love each counting other better than himself. Forgive even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. No. Trinity Christian School is not a perfect Christian school.

62:20 You'll only have that when we don't need it anymore. But it is a place where from the board down to the teachers and administrators there's a commitment to seek to regulate the entire enterprise by the principles of the word of God. And in the commitment to that endeavor they want to serve as many of our church family as they can. That's their main burden.

62:40 And that means to put it in a place where it's available to the vast majority without being too much of a burden to the church. And that means to put it in a place where it's available to the vast majority without being punitive in its economic pressure that we as God's people who share that vision and burden have an opportunity once a year to express our commitment in a benevolent offering that is not to be conceived of as well as I'm giving some money to the school. No. I am doing this as an act of faith out of my concern for the rising generations.

63:20 That's the vision. That's the commitment. That's the perspective. And may God grant that as a congregation we will never become irresponsibly preoccupied with just that part of the race that we are personally called upon to run.

63:39 But remember we have a baton. And we must not only place that in the hand of the next generation but teach them how to run their part of the race well and how to pass on the baton. To the following generation. May God grant us grace so to do by the power of His Spirit.

64:02 Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path. And we pray that You would by Your grace so work in all of the hearts of Your people in this place that we will have a renewed determination both to establish, to maintain and also to pass on to others a biblical perspective and a practical commitment to fulfill our duty to the rising generations. Lord, we are grieved that we live in a day that is encased with its obsession for self and immediate gratification that sacrifices unborn children upon the altar of present fulfillment and present pleasure and present desire. God, deliver us and help us by Your grace to have the long-term perspective that in that last day we may see You unfold before our eyes the fruit of those things that You will be doing when some of us are in our graves.

65:32 Help us, O God our Father, bless Your truth to our hearts and may Your Spirit apply it in those ways which He knows each of us needs to have it applied. We ask these mercies in Jesus' name. Amen.