Your Family life, Part 2

Recap: Biblically Ordered, Gospel-Flavored Family Life

0:03 Last Lord's Day evening, as we gathered here for our evening worship, I began my message with the following words in my introduction, and I quote them. We come tonight to the seventh and final message in this relatively brief series of sermons, which I have entitled, Parting Councils to the Members and Friends of Trinity Baptist Church, end quote. If you were present last Lord's Day evening for this that was to be my seventh and final sermon in that series, you know that I did not complete that sermon. And again, I quote, I acknowledged as I brought the message to a close that I was not sure how and when to complete that message with just one more Lord's Day among you. Some of you graciously made suggestions to us as your pastors, one of which all three of us agreed was the wisest course to take. Hence, we're together in this adult Sunday school class, joined and honored by the Lord. In the presence of the young people from the fifth grade upward through the high school class, in order that I might complete the sermon only partly preached last Lord's Day evening.

1:29 We do have visitors among us, and so I will take just a few minutes to briefly review what I preached to you last Lord's Day evening, and then complete the sermon in this hour. My word of counsel to you last. Lord's Day evening was this. Hold fast to your convictions and your practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life.

2:00 Upon reflection, that word of counsel should have been this.

2:07 Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life.

2:16 Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. Hold fast and continue to grow in your convictions and practice concerning biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life. After defining what I meant by the words of that council, biblically ordered, I set before you the conviction that what the Bible teaches concerning family life is timeless, supracultural, and relevant in every circumstance to the family.

2:44 And by gospel-flavored, I meant that most of the instruction, particularly of the epistles, comes in the context where the gospel has come, conquered human hearts, and men and women are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They are trusting in Christ. They love Christ. They want to please Christ.

3:08 And therefore, in their family living, there is a flavor of the gospel. Paul especially continues to bring central gospel truths to bear upon his instructions concerning the family. And then I spent a few minutes to give what I called a picture of the ideal, biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family. It will find, first of all, a husband who will exercise a selfless, sacrificial, nourishing and cherishing headship, administered in principled love and honor in a context of growing understanding of his wife. That's a distillation of the teaching of Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, 7, and Colossians 3. And then the wife. She will render a willing, cheerful, and supportive, submissive, submission and respect in principled love.

4:19 And I should have added these words, with her primary function and sphere of her activity as a worker at home. Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and Titus chapter 2. Then I didn't give a description of the children. And I should have done that.

4:44 I'm sorry. Of the parents. Of the parents to the children. And this is what you should have heard last week.

4:50 That where you have parents who are biblically governed in their parenting and gospel-flavored, you will find a constant, prayerful, loving, but principled nurture of the whole child by means of discipline and instruction drawn from the Word of God and administered in the spirit of the child. And this is what you should have heard last week. In the authority of Christ. That brings together the teaching of Ephesians 6, 4, Colossians 3, 21, and large sections of the book of Proverbs and passages such as Deuteronomy chapter 6.

5:33 Well then, what will the children look like in a biblically-framed, gospel-flavored family? I answer, they will manifest, a cheerful, universal, principled obedience and honor rendered as unto the Lord. Ephesians 6, 1-3 and Colossians 3 and verse 20. Now, obviously, that submission is to be qualified even as it was with our Lord Jesus.

6:08 When his parents found him back at the temple, they were irritated, thinking he had really, really wronged them. And he said, did you not know that I must be about the things of my father? When the will of God revealed through the Word of God demands that children disobey their parents, they are under obligation to disobey them just as a wife. When a husband's requests of her mean that she must disobey principles or precepts of the revealed will of God, she is not to rest, render obedience to his demand that she sin. But apart from those instances, children in a biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family will render cheerful, universal, principled obedience and honor rendered as unto the Lord. Then I gave five words of warning to husbands and wives regarding the things that will militate against this growing in a biblically ordered, gospel-flavored husband-wife relationship. I will not take the time to repeat them. If I'm to complete the sermon in this hour, I must press on now to take up, this is now new material, I've left the review,

Warning 1 for Parents: Beware of Fragmenting Extracurricular Activities

7:35 warnings to children. I'm sorry, warnings to parents, I'm sorry, and then the warnings to children. As you seek as parents to exercise a constant, prayerful, loving, but principled nurture of the whole child by means of discipline and instruction drawn from the Word of God and administered in the authority of Christ, what are the dangers that you face? Things which, if you are unaware, you will not be able to overcome. If you are unaware, you will not be able to overcome. If you are unaware, you will not be able to overcome. If you are unaware, you will not be able to overcome. If you are unaware of them, or aware of them, you capitulate to them, will undermine your having a biblically ordered, gospel-flavored family life, especially the relationship to your children. And there's no particular significance in the order in which I lay out these warnings.

8:33 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 at his or her at 6.30,

9:28 and someone has to be picked up here and picked up there. And what happens is, cohesion in the family life greatly suffers. Even regular family worship, from church to private school, no one but either of the וה perfume or then any vice õs prior, I would argue, have won that kind of an overstated status. And at that point, you as parents need to rear back on your hind legs and say, thus far no further. If we cannot establish as a family a specific time when every day we gather as a family to read the word of God, or appropriate literature, to pray, to sing God's praises, those activities that are not biblically mandated, must continue to happen, and it remains a moment to sciences is the late Sh¿rnley in our heads until it gets into this, android лишed off of all the時間 to go into theonda church, so that we are in the context wheregarden carving was established in theんでвой s r yefbar'. Res Elena, are, if you need. You came outa tdreare to home in percentable irritated must go. Now you're going to have to run the risk of your kids getting irritated, thinking that you're insensitive. So what? When you've got the attitude of Joshua, Joshua 24, 15,

10:26 as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Our home is going to be a home that is marked by regular, consistent family worship. And anything that cuts into that must be altered or it must go. There is a horrible indictment in the book of Jeremiah concerning families that do not call upon God. There is a prayer prayed by the prophet in Jeremiah 10, 25. Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that know you not. Upon the families that do not call on your name. Pour out your wrath upon the families that do not call upon your name. Here is an explicit reference to family worship and to calling upon the name of God as families. So I urge you, parents, beware of the fragmenting influence.

11:38 Of extracurricular activities, whether it's sporting activities, whether it's music lessons, whatever it is, you're rationalizing. And have the moral courage to say, as for me and my house, this is how our life will be ordered. The way I sought to do this in my own family growing up, from 5.30 to 6.00.

12:09 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 morning and was not judicious in terms of the circumstances, but that time we jealously guarded from anything intruding upon it. Secondly, beware of the subtle absorption of the world's perspective on the training and discipline of your family.

Warning 2 for Parents: Beware of Worldly Perspectives on Child Training

13:09 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 shoes. Thanks, son, now you can do it on your own. This good job, good job, great job, building monuments to the

14:12 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.

14:52 Where do you find time-outs? Where do you find that in the Bible? Well, you find super nanny. I think some of you are more influenced by super nanny than by super Solomon.

15:04 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction drives it far from him. That's what the Bible says. Oh, but my child is so sensitive. Spanking is not the right method for him.

15:16 Oh, is that so? Where do you find that in the Bible? Dear people, I ask you, beware of the subtle absorption of the world's perspectives on the training and the discipline of your children. The rod of correction drives the foolishness from him.

15:37 And thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell. So, you shall not spare for his much crying. These are the admonitions. Proverbs 22, 15, 23, 13, 14, 19, 18, and a host of others.

Warning 3 for Parents: Beware of Inconsistent Husband-Wife Discipline

15:53 I hasten on. Parents, my third warning. Beware of anything less than joint husband-wife consistency in the training and discipline of your children. Beware of anything less.

16:12 Beware of anything less than joint husband-wife consistency in the training and discipline of your children. Ephesians 6, 4 places the primary burden of the training of the children upon the papa. And you fathers, nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. However, in 6, 1, Paul said, Children, obey your, not just your fathers, but obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

16:47 The assumption is that a mama and a papa are one in the directives and discipline enacted towards their children. That's the assumption. And though it is the father's primary responsibility as the chief administrator, the assumption is his wife is fulfilling the fundamental role for which God made her. the fundamental role for which God made her.

17:11 the fundamental role for which God made her. When I create a wife, I will make a helper answering to his need. And what does the papa need when he has spelled out the principles of the discipline and the training and the instruction? When he's off at the office, when he's in the shop, when he's in the place of employment seeking to earn the bread to put on the table, he needs a wife who is 100% committed to the service of God.

17:42 He needs a wife who is 100% committed to the service of God. He needs a wife who is 100% committed to the service of God. Upon which they've agreed.

17:46 She doesn't let the kids get away with bad-mouthing. She doesn't allow those children to whine and complain, to cut corners on their chores. The children know the mama and the papa day is one when it comes to our training and our discipline. And there are some of you women sitting here that ought to be filled with a sense of shame and conviction.

18:13 Because you know that's not true. You're too lazy. You're too self-indulgent. You can't bring your sensitive, womanly spirit into that theater where you need to be deaf to their whining, deaf to their cries, lay the rod upon them faithfully.

18:35 And if they don't break beneath it, you say like my mother did, give him some more, dad, he's not sweet yet.

Warning 4 for Parents: Beware of Worldly Views on Advanced Education

18:46 Dear Papa, Parents, you can undo, kids are uncanny in finding the crack in the presence of the disciplinary training framework of the home. God help you, beware of anything less than joint husband-wife consistency in the training and discipline of your children. Fourth warning, parents, beware of the world's perspective, concerning, now hear me carefully, advanced education and the so-called benefits of leaving the home for college. Now hear carefully what I'm not saying. I am not saying, all right, beware of the world's perspective concerning advanced education and the so-called benefits of leaving the home. Now hear what I am not saying. I am not saying that it would never be right and a responsible action of godly parents to send an 18-year-old son or daughter away from home, away from his or her church to a distant college or university.

20:11 Now do you hear me? Don't go out and say, Pastor Martin said it's never right. Pastor Martin didn't say that. What Pastor Martin said was, beware of the world's perspective concerning advanced education of your children and the advantages of sending them away.

20:34 What the world says is that they need the independence and the socialization of the campus. Who said so? The average 18 to 22-year-old. Needs your firm, hands-on parental guidance more in those years than perhaps any other years than the first five or six.

21:02 And you must have an unusual child if you're going to make a judgment before God that it is in their best interest, not just academically, but spiritually, in terms of relationships with others, etc., to send them out of the church. You must have the training, molding, influence of the home into dormitory life with peers around them who know as much and as little as they do and who can comfort one another in their ignorance and can figure out all the ways you're stuck in the mud and don't have a clue what life is all about as parents.

Warning 5 for Parents: Beware of Ungoverned Communication Devices

21:47 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. Beware of permitting, first, the ungoverned possession and use of a TV, even though it's pretty well phased out of a Walkman, of an iPod, an MP3 player, a computer, cell phone, all of these instruments of communication. God help you as a parent if that area is just, if that area is just, ungoverned, kid wants it, kid's got it, kid can afford it, kid pays for it, kid can have it. How naive can you be? There's a personal devil who sees these instruments as one of the most powerful ways to get into the mind and heart and thinking of your children,

23:14 and for you to sit back, no government over them. Second word, unmonitored, unmonitored. Parents who don't monitor. The extent to which their kids are involved in video games.

23:30 Secular psychiatrists and sociologists are deeply disturbed at this widespread addiction. People who are as addicted to their little levers and joysticks with their video games as a heroin addict is addicted to his next line of heroin.

23:50 Unmonitored, TV games, music conveying devices, kids with, unmonitored stuff denning into their ears and because you don't hear it with the privacy of their little ear buds. You don't care. You don't monitor them. Dear parents, I'm convinced, convinced with every fiber of my being that all the labors of your pastors and Sunday school teachers can go down the tube, including your labors at family worship.

24:23 If you have unmonitored presence of these devices, in your home unchecked,

24:31 unmonitored, unchecked goes a little bit further. You have a right of access to any of these tools that are in your home. If your child box with you saying, open up your my space or my face, whatever page you've got, you say, that's the end of it. That's the end of it.

24:53 Under your roof. You have the God given authority and right to check. On the use of any of these faculties. I'm sorry, any of these instruments and then unfiltered.

25:09 If you feel before God, you must have Internet access in your home and you have not researched and put in the best of the filters available. You're a fool.

25:23 You hear me? You are a fool.

25:28 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 disobedience.

26:35 So I plead with you. Beware. Beware of permitting the ungoverned, unmonitored, unchecked and unfiltered use of the. Manifold communication devices available to your children.

Introduction to Warnings for Children and Young People

26:52 Well, those are my five warnings to you parents in terms of things that I perceive are a tremendous threat to having biblically ordered gospel flavored family life. Now, children, young people, I want to speak to you and I have warnings for you. And these warnings come out of the. Depths of my heart.

27:22 Remember the clear word of God to you as a child. Ephesians six verses one to three children obey your parents in the Lord. Why? For this is right.

27:37 Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Think of the Lord Jesus. After that incident in Jerusalem, at age twelve, when he said, what did you not know? I must be about the things of my father.

27:58 He did not sin. He did not disobey nor disrespect his parents, for he's our sinless savior. It says in Luke fifty one and two, he went down to Nazareth and was subject to them. The next time we see him, he's age thirty, standing in the waters of Jordan, baptized by John.

28:24 The Spirit of God comes upon him and anoints him for his public ministry and his messianic role as our prophet, priest and king. During all those years, he was a perfectly obedient son. He went down to Nazareth and subject to them. Smarter than them, of course, in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, and of knowledge.

28:55 He made them. They were his very creatures. But he went down to Nazareth and was subject to them. He never got mouthy, never got cheeky, never was resistant.

29:14 He went down to Nazareth and was subject to them. Let me give some specific warnings now to you young people. Beware of associating with the world, associating with peers. You know who your peers are, kids?

Warning 1 for Children: Beware of Weakening Peer Associations

29:30 They're your buddies. I asked Dorothy, What do girls call their girlfriends? Guys call them a buddy. She said, Do the girls have a name for them?

29:37 She said, I don't think so. So, forgive my ignorance, you young ladies. If you got a word for me, what do you call your girl buddies? You call them G buddies?

29:48 Or just call them my girlfriends? I don't know. All right. But when I use the word peers, beware of associating with peers.

29:55 Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

29:55 Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

29:56 With peers, that is people relatively your own age and from your own sphere of experience, and now listen to me carefully, beware of associating with peers who in any way weaken your desire and practice to have your parents and older Christians exercise the dominant influence in your life. Now let me run it by again and you think carefully what I'm saying. Beware of associating with peers who in any way weaken your desire and your practice to have your parents and older Christians exercise the dominant influence upon your life. Who is to exercise the dominant influence in your life? You. Fathers with a fully cooperative mother nurture them.

31:03 The parents are commanded by God to exercise the dominant molding influence upon your life, which means you are to embrace their dominant molding influence upon your life. Or take Proverbs chapter 1. It brings this principle into show. A sharp focus.

31:27 Proverbs chapter 1, verse 10 and 11a. My, I'm sorry, verse 8. My son, hear the instruction of your father and forsake not the law of your mother. Here's the mama and the papa, they are one.

31:44 Instruction of father, law, and mother are one. Hear the instruction of your father. Forsake not the law of your mother. They shall be a chaplet of grace.

31:56 Unto your head and chains around your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, don't consent with them. Along come the peers, and they say, join our group. This is almost like establishing a gang in its specific application.

32:18 But here's the principle. My son, let father and mother exercise the dominant influence on your thinking. On your behavior, on your perspectives about the world, about yourself, about life, in all of its facets. And anyone that comes along and would cut the nerve of the dominant influence of your mama and your papa, say to them, out of my life, you are doing no good to me.

32:52 Then remember, in 1 Kings chapter 8, that very graphic description. Of a man who didn't heed this principle. 1 Kings chapter 12. I'm sorry, verses 6 and 8.

33:08 1 Kings chapter 6. I'm sorry, chapter 12. I can't get the numbers right. Chapter 12.

33:19 1 Kings chapter 12. You have this man named King Rehoboam, one of Solomon's sons. Verse 6. King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men.

33:31 Now look what it says about these old men. That had stood. Before Solomon his father, while he yet lived. He went to men who had absorbed from Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, much of the wisdom of their mentor and their king, Solomon.

33:53 And he said to them, What counsel will you give me to return answer to this people? And they spoke to him, saying, And then they gave him very wise counsel. Did he then implement it and say, Look, I'm a young man. You are older men.

34:10 You sat before my father, the wisest man who ever lived. Surely I'd be a knucklehead not to listen to you guys. No. What did he do?

34:21 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.

34:51 They were his buddies. He said, I'll go to my buddies and I'll get counsel from them. And they gave him bad counsel. And he followed that bad counsel.

35:01 And even though God overruled it in order to fulfill his threat to Solomon about, the breaking up of his kingdom, the principle is clear. This man was a fool for being detached from the counsel of older and wiser people.

35:20 And so my warning to you, children, young people, beware of associating with peers who in any way weaken your desire and practice to have your parents and older Christians exercise the principle of the old man. And so my warning to you, children, young people, is to have the dominant molding influence upon your life. You need to have the moral courage that when your girlfriends or your boyfriends begin to say, you know, your old man, he doesn't come quite with it. You need to rear back on your hind legs and say, look, you're trying to put any distance between me and my pop.

35:59 You're out of my life. Period.

36:02 You're out, children. This is cruel. The world out there, the devil, the God of Israel, this world, his minions at work in the lives of those who know not the Savior, they are out to grab you and to suck you into their orbit. And one of the ways they will do it is by associating with peers who will by degrees put distance between you and your parents and distance between their counsel and molding influence and that which God would use for your well-being.

36:45 You need to ask, what do you know about yourself? What do you know, my peer? How long have you been around? What wisdom of the years do you have?

Warning 2 for Children: Beware of Worldly Influence Through Media

36:56 My second warning is this. Beware of allowing the world to shape your thinking in any area of life by what you read, watch, or listen to. Beware of allowing the world to shape your thinking in any area of life by what you read, watch, or listen to. Beware of allowing the world to shape your thinking in any area of life by what you read, watch, or listen to.

37:27 Psalm 1 tells us the way of blessedness. What is it? Oh, the blessednesses, it's in the plural. The blessedness, the fullness of life, the richness of life with a capital L.

37:43 That's what blessedness is. Oh, the blessedness of the man who walks not, in the counsel of the ungodly. He does not stand in the way of sinners. He does not sit in the seat of scoffers.

38:00 He rejects the associations of influence from the wicked. And in turn, his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law does he meditate day and night. Dear children and young people, I plead with you.

38:20 The world is out to get you. And behind that world system is a wicked devil whom Jesus describes as a thief who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And he's out to steal, to kill, and destroy you. If you think that the powers of darkness are neutral to you, you're in la-la land.

38:52 There's a personal devil who's set on having you end up in hell with him. That's reality. He's set with all his fiendish passion that you're going to join him in hell. And you know how he's going to try to get you, to soften you up, to consume you?

39:12 The things you read, the things you watch, the things you hear. Those are all avenues into your mind. And God says, God says the blessed man is the one who blocks off those avenues to the mind from anything which does not come through the filter of the law of God. Bringing every thought to the obedience of Christ.

39:38 Every thought! So that what I think about myself, and what I think about my parents, what I think about sex, and what I think about dating, and what I think about marriage, and what I think about entertainment, and what I think about everything, it's all brought captive to Christ who said, I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. In the way of the keeping of His precepts and commandments is fullness of life. I think of all those peers when God saved me as a senior in high school.

40:18 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.

40:33 I saw many of them. The one high school reunion I went to 25 years after I graduated from high school. And they were burnt out, bloated, blistered, blasted. They looked like old men.

40:51 I looked out of place. My master's been a good master. Dear children and young people, beware. Beware of allowing the world to shape your thinking by anything you read, watch, or listen to.

Warning 3 for Children: Beware of Delaying Salvation

41:13 And then my third warning is this. Let me check my watch. My third warning is this. And if I could take every last fiber of who and what I am as a man and pour it out like an offering at your feet, I would do it.

41:40 Here's my warning. Beware of delaying the greatest of all concerns, that of your own soul's salvation. Beware of delaying that greatest of all concerns, that of your own soul's salvation from sin. God's word is clear.

42:07 In Ecclesiastes 12.1, he says to you, dear children, young people, remember now your Creator in the days of your youth. Before the days come and you say, I have no pleasure in them. I doubt there are many, if any, sitting here among you children and young people who in your sober moments don't know you're a sinner, you know that.

42:40 As much as you may try to put that down, you know it. Conscience whispers at times. Conscience thunders. And you have been told again and again by parents and preachers and Sunday school teachers that the only way for your need as a sinner to be met is in the person and in the work of Christ.

43:05 He said, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And in your sober moments you know something else. You know that life is uncertain.

43:17 Proverbs 27.1 says, Do not boast yourself of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. And here's a truth you may not know, but you need to know. That when you delay coming to Christ in the midst of gospel life, where the beams of the gospel filter down upon your mind and heart day after day, week after week, delay in the midst of gospel life brings hardness of heart.

43:58 We are never neutral to gospel life, to the provisions of God in Christ, to the overtures of God's mercy to us in Christ. Once they beam down upon our hearts and our consciences, we are not neutral to them. And if we resist the sweet, tender overtures of God in the gospel, we bring hardness of heart upon ourselves. This is why God says in Hebrews 3.7 and 4.7, Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your heart. The only alternative to a hard heart is to say, Lord Jesus, I will no longer resist Your voice. Or listen to the warning of Proverbs 29 and verse 1, one of the most serious, sober warnings in the book of Proverbs. He that being often reproved hardens his neck and shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

45:12 Dear children, dear young people, on this, the last Lord's day, that I will stand in this pulpit as one of the pastors in this assembly, I plead with you with all my heart. Delay no longer. It doesn't matter what brings you to Christ so long as you get to Him. You hear me?

45:39 It doesn't matter what brings you to Him so long as you get to Him. It may be you feel a crushing burden of your own sin and trying to do right and you have no power. What does Jesus say to you? Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

46:00 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. Or maybe it's not so much the sense of being burdened with your sin, but there's a deep interest and an inner gnawing thirst in the soul. You say, life must be more than this. Then listen to Jesus.

46:24 John 7, 37, He said, If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. Are you thirsty? Come to Christ and drink. It may be for some of you you live like I did, day after day under the terror of God's judgment that could fall upon you and land you in hell.

46:45 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.

47:06 You didn't murder them in premeditated murder. God made a provision. Three places in Israel where there were cities and the next of kin, who would have the right to track down a murderer and would seek to track you down and treat you as a murderer. You could run to the nearest city of refuge and once the doors of that city flung open and you were inside and the doors were shut, you were safe.

47:33 And the writer to Hebrews says, We who believe in Christ have fled for refuge. What's your conscious need? Is it dread of judgment? Run into Christ?

47:44 He bore the waves and the billows of the wrath of God against human sin until from the depths of his holy being he cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Run to Christ! He was forsaken that you might be hidden in him and in his righteousness. Dear children and young people, beware of delaying this greatest of all concerns, that of your own salvation from sin.

48:22 Leave your sin. Go to Christ. As I was going over these notes early this morning and thought of that great day that's going to bring us all together again. There will be days, as I'll say in the morning message, God willing, when we will be together again, the majority of us as a congregation, and I as a preacher, but we'll never, every single one of us present here today, we have visitors among us, we'll never be together, all of us, without exception, again, until, until the day of judgment. And I tried to think, Lord, what would it be like to stand there at the side of my Lord and hear him say to some of you precious children sitting here, who may grow up to be men and women and live out your days, what will it be like for me to hear my Savior say to you and to you and to you, depart from me, you cursed one, into everlasting,

49:45 depart from me, the source of all grace and light and mercy and pity and forgiveness and spiritual life, away with you, depart from me, into everlasting fire. All I can say is, God will do a work that will enable us even to rejoice in your judgment. But I can't do it now. The thought of you going to hell is too painful, and there's no neutral ground. Jesus said, he that is not with me is against me. He that gathers not with me scatters. You're in Christ or out of Christ.

50:46 You are in Adam or in Christ. And I beg you this morning, beware of delaying in this greatest of all concerns. Would God that today you will obey the gracious command of the prophet Isaiah, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy unto our God, for he will abundantly.

51:30 What a wonderful send-off it would be to know that this day some of you at last said, O Lord Jesus, I'm done, I'm done dallying about my soul's salvation. I'm done resisting and playing the fool. Lord Jesus, I come to you as best I know how, turning from self and sin, and I cast myself upon you. Be my Savior, be my Master, be my all.

Closing Prayer

52:09 Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that you would be pleased to take these exhortations that have been brought to the parents and to the children and young people and make them effectual in every single heart. We ask you, our Father, that your word will not return unto you void, but may accomplish that whereunto you have sent it. We ask in Jesus' name.

52:48 Amen.