Family Means of Grace

Introduction to Family Means of Grace

0:04 This adult Sunday school class was held on April 24, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, last week, Pastor Martin continued and was in the process, last week, this final dimension of these studies on the Christian life, which has to do with the matter of the means of grace. Last week, he dealt with the private means of grace, and the Lord willing, next week, he's going to deal with the public or corporate means of grace. And so, since he's away this week, it seemed appropriate then that I should come and deal with something in the middle. And that is, that which comes between the private means of grace and the corporate. The private means of grace, and before he left for his ministry in Canada, I bounced off of him my intention to do that, and he thought it would be a good idea, and we went over this material together.

1:19 So this is, in a sense, a joint effort, although I have to bear the responsibility for that which is said this morning. Now, what then would you put between the private means of grace and the public means of grace? Is there anything else? No, you can't answer, because you know what it is.

1:40 Yes.

1:41 David, yes.

1:45 That's right, yeah. The family means of grace.

1:56 I was going to refer to it as semi-private, but no one would understand what that meant. They'd think it was a hospital room, so. It's not referring to that. It's referring to the family means of grace.

2:09 The family means of grace. Now, I have several things, then, to say with respect to the family means. The family means of grace today. We don't want to leave this out, because it's really very important.

2:20 And yet, in a sense, it forms a bridge between your own private, personal devotions and your engagement in the public, corporate activities of the people of God. Now, the first thing that we could mention is the identity of these family means.

Identifying the Family Means of Grace

2:42 What are the family means of grace?

2:47 Who wants to venture a guess? A family prayer?

3:04 Cliff? What do you mean by catechizing?

3:27 An instruction. You don't mean to limit that, then, to the use of the catechism? No.

3:34 Oh, there's more. Those are the only ones I'm prepared to deal with, so perhaps if there are more, we're going to have some interesting discussion this morning. Yes.

3:51 Okay.

3:56 I would include that, basically, with this. What did you put singing in there?

4:02 Singing of things? Good. Amen. I wasn't prepared to deal with them.

4:08 I didn't give instructions for family singing, but it certainly is definitely a family means of grace. Yes. Let's say you started eating your child, but now you've forgotten to pray. You don't understand the checking of balance.

4:36 I don't have a word for it. Neither do I, but I know what you mean.

4:41 All right. We'll put up your checking balance.

4:47 I think, probably, you're talking about something there which is parallel to Hebrews chapter 3. Perhaps we...

4:55 Perhaps we... Perhaps we...

4:55 Perhaps we can... You know, I thought of that, David, and I didn't know Pastor Martin may get into that next week.

5:02 There's a sense in which that's an overlap between the corporate means of grace, and I'll show you why. So I'm not going to deal with that today, because I felt that you could deal with that under the thing next week, but I wrestled with it.

5:17 Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 and 13.

5:23 Take heed, brethren, lest happily there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief and falling away from the living God, but exhort one another day by day, so long as... As it is called today, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

5:37 For we are become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end. So there you find this duty of exhorting one another, and this exhorting of one another goes on as a Christian and corporate duty in the context of our mutual relations, and one of those relations is the family relation. So as you come into closer relations to each other, there's a heightened...

6:02 application of this corporate duty to exhort one another. The more you know about someone, and of course somebody, the more there is as a basis for exhortation. And what is it that becomes a more intimate relationship than when husband and wife are members of the same church? You see, then, as husband and as wife, because of your intimate proximity to your marriage partner, you have a heightened responsibility with respect to the implementation of this corporate duty.

6:31 So the two... The two things really go together, and I was suspecting that Pastor Martin would deal with that next week and emphasize the fact that the closeness of our relations within the congregation, our immediate family members, and then our friends, and then our acquaintances, etc., the closeness of our relations with the brethren will determine the degree to which we must engage in this duty with the brethren. And so I would think that's probably going to come up next week. But if it doesn't, then we'll bring it up. So we'll remember that the check and balance, and that's certainly true, certainly true, it's just a matter of organization and where do you put it.

7:12 All right, any others? Any other things that you can think of?

7:21 All right, I believe then we've identified the things which I had. I had it broken up into the following things, and you've got all the elements of it. I had it broken up, first of all, into regular family devotions, regular times of family devotion or worship, which I had, including three elements. Prayer, the reading of the word, and the singing of hymns of praise.

7:43 Prayer, the reading of the word, and the singing of hymns of praise. Psalms and hymns, family devotions, prayer, singing, and the reading of scripture. And the second family means of grace was the training, the training, the religious, moral, ethical training and instruction of the children by husband and wife, and also the...

8:09 The instruction, not training in the same sense, but the instruction and care of the wife spiritually by the husband. Two things. The religious instruction and moral training, religious training of the children by the parents, and also the instruction and care of the wife spiritually by the husband. All right, now, we come then having identified the family, the hymns of grace, and I'm going to knock you down too long.

Biblical Basis for Family Devotions and Instruction

8:45 I'm going to erase this. Someone told me that in the back, I can't see. If you write down in the lower half of the board, so I'll just use the upper half. The, uh, now the biblical basis.

8:59 Prayer, this would be family devotion or worship,

9:16 and instruction, be your children.

9:33 Now, having arranged it like that, how would we seek to support that from the scriptures? Yes, Mr. Brown. Okay.

9:43 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

10:01 I think the role model is another means of grace. In reality, a godly father, godly mother, a godly brother, a sister, but the means of grace in that is living a Christian life and then they've got . Absolutely. The place that I was going to include it was in this, in this matter of instruction.

10:28 It was then included as one of the ways of instruction as being a godly model. It's absolutely very important. Excellent.

10:36 All right. Now, we come to the, biblical basis how would you seek to support from the scriptures that such ought to be done in the home and how would you seek to support from the scriptures that it's our responsibility to do it and that these are the things we're responsible to do Jonathan

11:16 all right so the general responsibility of love in a patient's mind all right Mr. Davies all right would you read that please

11:58 okay Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7 now speaking about the responsibility of parents to instruct their children yes George Ephesians 6, 4 would you read that please all right the chastening and the admonition the training the discipline and the admonition of the Lord all right passage which indicates in a special way the responsibility not of of parents yes but especially the responsibility of fathers with respect to the religious instruction and also the moral training and discipline of their children right other passages from the word of God what does that say mm-hmm all right you compare that with the statement in 1st Timothy 3 that from the from the child he had known the scriptures considering that his father was a Greek

13:26 indicates that his mother perhaps also his grandmother too took upon them the responsibility of training that boy in the things of God bringing the scriptures before his mind so that he knew them from the time that he was a little child the scriptures were brought to bear upon him and that very thing which was in his mother which was in his grandmother by the grace of God came to dwell in him because of their example because of their training and probably also because of their prayers their urgent prayers for Timothy before the Lord yeah but I believe that is a a very that a valid and relevant passage which indicates that it's not only responsibility of the father but also of the mother from chapters 1 through 9 but in particular would you read that please from first chapters 1 through 9 right in particular also even in chapter 1 the first few verses the Proverbs of Solomon to receive the instruction of wisdom, righteousness, and justice, and equity to give prudence to the simple to the young man knowledge and discretion and then down in verse 8 of chapter 1 my son hear the instruction of thy father

14:50 forsake not the law of thy mother very good excellent that's one of perhaps perhaps the key passage in the Old Testament is Proverbs that entire Proverbs chapters 1 through 9 is the exhortation of the father to his son the exhortation the concern of a godly father that his son would understand the ways of God and he entreats his son and he pleads with his son and he commands his son and he instructs his son there's this open hearted open faced personal religious communion and training between father and son and the entirety of Proverbs 1 through 9 is a living example that the godly and wise father took this to heart but even there he says not just the law of your father but the law of your mother Proverbs 31 ah very good Proverbs 1 and 31 the beginning and the end the words of King Nundual the oracle which his mother taught him the oracle which his mother taught him which his mother taught him which his mother taught him which his mother taught him he had a godly mother who instructed him in the things of God

The Rod of Correction as a Means of Grace

16:02 alright what Mr. Hawkins is making reference to are those passages in the Proverbs in which there are the promises of blessing associated with the responsibility of godly training of children and the one that comes in particular to my mind although this wasn't the exact one he quoted but I'll give this one to you as well it's in Proverbs chapter 22 Proverbs 22 Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 15 indicates that the rod is a means of grace as part of the overall training and instruction of the child Proverbs 22 15 foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him see you see first of all the biblical concept of the child the child is not regarded as basically and inherently by birth wise and good

17:28 but the child is regarded as inherently and basically foolish that is it is foolishness which is bound up within the heart of the child foolishness does not intrude itself from without due to the pressure of peers due to watching people sin but foolishness is bound up within you see the doctrine of depravity is bound up within the text depravity is not something which is ultimately learned it is something which is from within it is inbred it is bound up within the heart and it is because depravity foolishness and folly is bound up within the heart that we imitate folly when we see it in others and so the point is we're dealing with those who have foolishness bound up in the heart who have foolishness bound up in the heart but what happens the rod of correction is the instituted means of God to drive that foolishness far from the heart the rod of correction is the means of grace it is the means by which God is often pleased to operate in driving the foolishness which is bound up in our hearts by nature from our hearts as it were when the rod is applied to the back side to the back side

18:56 the foolishness goes out from the heart that's the way God has ordained it he has ordained that the rod on the back drives the foolishness out of the heart there's this intimate connection between the body and the soul and the soul of the child is being trained and molded by the application of the rod to the body of the child now that's what the scripture clearly teaches that this is a means of grace now it doesn't mean that this is an absolute certain promise it's speaking about a general statement concerning the way that God ordinarily works in his providence it is not saying that if you are faithful in spanking your children when they are willfully and deliberately rebellious therefore automatically ipso facto or ex opere operando they will be saved it doesn't say that it says that this is the means of grace it is the means which God is often and ordinarily pleased to use in the salvation of our children that God not only uses the indiscriminate proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of our children but God often and ordinarily uses parental training and instruction and particularly parental discipline

20:24 as the means of grace for the salvation of the souls of our children that's why it says he that spares the rod hates his son but he that loves him chastens him diligently or the word really means early in other words he gets up early in the morning to do it it's the graphic Hebrew imagery of someone being diligent rising early determined to get about a task and get it done and so he that loves his son chastens him diligently his heart is set upon it and he is doing it earnestly and faithfully and resolutely because he recognizes that it is a means of grace and he loves his son and he desires to see the grace of God worked in his son and so you see while it may sound very nice and while it may touch the strains of sentimentality which are in our hearts the doctrine of humanism that our children are basically good is that we are not and that we don't need to confront their wills and that if we confront their wills we're going to destroy their little personalities that doctrine is not built out of love to children that is an expression of hatred that's what the Bible says it says that is not love it says that is hatred it is hatred not because it grows out of an ill motive

21:53 but because it grows out of a perverted assessment of the situation and it is not in the child's best interest though you may do it out of good will it is not in the child's best interest because you have gravely misconceived the state of the child and therefore you are not giving the child what he needs and love provides what someone needs you are doing exactly the worst possible thing you could do for the well-being of that child's soul and that's not love you may think it's love but it isn't love it's hate according to the word of God therefore you see a text like these and the text that's written that Mr. Holcomb mentioned there are a menagerie of texts like these throughout the book of Proverbs which clearly indicate that this is a means of grace which God has ordained for the well-being of our children Mr. Johnson hmm yes that's another one of those texts you would find it a very interesting study to read through the book of Proverbs and see what the overarching emphasis is in the book of Proverbs upon the relationship of parent and child

23:22 you'd find that an interesting study and you'd find out that this is exactly what the emphasis is alright well notice I put all the check marks here the responsibility of training and instructing our children what about family questions Ephesians 5 verse 19 Ephesians 5 19 Ephesians 5 verse 19 Ephesians 5 yes and I suppose you could you could make an argument there you mean oh alright I changed Bibles and it's in a different spot of the page I couldn't find it alright Ephesians 5 19 it looked where it was in my other Bible and it wasn't there speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ

24:45 now I suppose if someone wanted to be a stickler on you as an exegete would tell you that's not addressed to a family it's addressed to the church how do you make application of that to the family well you brought the text up yeah how so public worship and corporate worship also in certain principles applies to the family the model of public worship the Father leading the family prayer scripture singing it also applies to some of the same principles alright that's a point I suppose what you could do with the text is you could take the same basic tact that you would take with the text like Ephesians sorry Hebrews chapter 3 where we saw in Hebrews chapter 3 that there's the responsibility for mutual exhortation in the congregation that is understood to go on within the confines of the God ordained relations which take place well as that's true and as that is intensified in the context of the family so also this responsibility is intensified in the context of the family and you could take that line in an effort to

26:12 in an effort to say that these things apply in the various relations that would also be borne out by the context in which he then opens up the various relations which the people of God sustain to each other after giving the various directives which are to apply to the people of God as a corporate entity he then opens up the various relations in which those directives are to find concrete application and the first one is the relation of husband and wife and parent and child is the next so you could make that point from the passage and I think you could at least draw an inferential argument that it's there Mr. Clark I think the translators of the revisers produced the American Standard Version were in agreement with Charles at the head of the page in my Bible it says domestic duties very good yes but you know the question of course it says that it says that here in my Bible too domestic domestic duties but it but there the heading refers to verse 22 and following so for that it says wives and husbands oh alright yeah so

28:12 , what we're saying in the Bible is that the Bible says that that we never sing the praises of God in their presence because God has ordained that when we speak of his ways and his works that growing out of that should be the singing of his praises and what kind of a climate are we creating if we talk about his works and yet we do that in such a way as the children never see it joined to the singing of his praises that's not a scriptural climate we're divorcing and putting asunder those things which God has joined together. It's an excellent passage, yes. Howard.

28:48 Speak up a little bit, please, Howard. It's a parallel path of communion with all the wisdom and admonishing one another in hymns and spirituals, singing with thankfulness in your heart. Okay.

29:16 And then you would look at that text in the same way, indicating that there is the general duty and responsibility and then this is outlined in concrete terms with respect to the various domestic relations in which the people of God are found. Yes, Jerry and then Dan. There's an assumption of a climate and context in the home in which the woman is able to ask her husband about the things of God. That that's characteristic of the overall climate and pattern of the home and family life.

The Principle of Regularity and Reinforcement

30:09 All right. Now, we're going to run out of time in a minute then. If I take two weeks and Pastor Martin comes home next week and I'm not finished with him, I'll be in trouble because then he won't be able to do what he's supposed to do. So, basically, I don't know that you can find a specific, you won't find a text, one text which says thou shalt have family devotions.

30:31 You won't find that. But what you will have is all of these texts which indicate biblical principle and yet there's one other factor that I believe needs to be added and it is this. It is the general principle that all things be done decently and in order. In everything that we do, we cannot approach it haphazardly.

30:52 If we approach any of our responsibilities haphazardly, we cannot approach it haphazardly. If we approach it haphazardly in a disorderly way, in a manner characterized by disarray, we will find that those responsibilities will not be done in a way which is to the most glory to God. And so, with respect to our responsibilities as husband and wife to pray together and I would put in that category 1 Peter chapter 3 where the husband is to dwell with the wife according to knowledge to the end that the prayers, their prayers, be not hindered. And if you study some of the best commentaries on the text, they indicate not so much that it's talking about the hindering of your own personal prayers but the hindering of your prayers together as husband and wife.

31:35 So there's praying, there's involvement with the scripture, there is the singing of hymns, there is the instruction of the children. Now, if we're going to do these things right, we cannot do them haphazardly. Whatever we do, we must do decently, we must do it in order. We cannot simply haphazardly approach any of the duties and responsibilities of life.

31:58 So that's why I've used the word regular family devotions and regular religious instruction of our children. And those of you who are involved in teaching, I cannot help but think of teaching Greek in this regard. What is it that is the most helpful with respect to teaching Greek? It is repetition.

32:20 You must do a little bit of it every day. You try to learn Greek, by studying it once a week, you'll find it very, very difficult because you'll come back a week later and you will have forgotten everything you learned the week before. The same thing is true with respect to your children. You seek to give your religious instruction to your children on a sporadic basis.

32:43 You will find it very difficult. But when you go over it again and again, repetition, you make it clear, you make it simple, and you repeat it. You repeat it again. You repeat it again.

32:57 You repeat it again. And it is through constant repetition that it eventually begins to sink into the mind. When great spans of time, great intervals go in between the lessons, it is not, by and large, retained. But when it is regularly repeated and driven in, that is when it tends to stick in the mind.

33:19 It must be repeated and then it must be concretely reinforced. And this is the point Mr. Brown was making. It must not only be repeated, it must be related to the concrete examples.

33:31 Your example of praise must be before them. Your example of prayer must be before them. Your example of understanding and studying the truth and relating to the word of God must be before them. So as you're teaching your children, you must also be giving them concrete examples of the very things you're teaching them to which they can relate.

33:52 So there must be regular instruction, repetition, and reinforcement. Instruction, repetition, reinforcement. And if the instruction and repetition needs to be regular, line upon line, precept upon precept, then also so does the reinforcement which goes with it. So that's the other principle which ties these things together.

34:16 It's that principle of instruction. And it is that you cannot approach instruction in a haphazard and disorderly way. If you do, your results will be appropriate and related to it. The results will be as haphazard and disorderly as your method of instruction.

Benefits of Family Means of Grace

34:33 Alright, so having then sought to lay out the biblical basis for this responsibility, let me come down in the next place to deal with the benefits. The benefits identified with the family means of grace.

34:54 The benefits.

35:03 Now I could probably draw these out of you. I'm sure that you know them. But I want to go over them for the sake of time myself. First of all, the benefits with respect to the husband.

35:18 The benefits with respect to the husband. When he is engaged in training his children, when he's engaged in conducting family worship and in conducting the oversight of his wife and in conducting the training of his children in religious things, the husband is forced to read the Bible. He's forced to study the Bible, to meditate upon the Bible and upon the things of God and the works of God with his own heart. In other words, it creates a pressure upon that man.

35:52 The responsibility of engaging in these things creates a pressure upon the man to walk with God or else to go through these things in a meaningless, ritualistic way which will sear his conscience because he's hypocritically engaging in empty ritual. So you see the force that's put on him? Either he's going to be maintaining a walk with God, reading the scriptures, meditating upon the scriptures, or he's going to be going through this in a mechanistic, ritualistic, empty and meaningless way. So most people are not ready to sear their consciences, I hope.

36:39 They don't want to go through ritualistic religion, I hope. And therefore, if they're committed to this responsibility, it will drive them as a means of grace to a careful walk with God so that they will not be engaging in hypocrisy and formalism when they're teaching their children and when they are teaching their wife and when they're singing and when they're praying with their families. But the same thing is true of the wife. It makes the wife also walk with God.

37:15 It does the same impact upon the wife when she knows that she must train her children. And she does not want to do that in the context of hypocrisy. But it does another thing for a wife, too. And that grows out of the point, I forget who brought it up, but the point that grew out of 1 Corinthians 14.

37:34 It is that it exposes the wife to the constant check of her husband's critical judgment and his judgment. 1 Timothy chapter 2 indicates that women are not to teach because the woman was deceived, not the man. And that it exposes the wife to the constant check, balance and protection of her husband's critical judgment and input. Another thing that it does is this.

38:05 With respect to the husband and the wife, to the end that your prayers be not hindered, it forces the wife to keep and to maintain reconciled, open-faced fellowship within the family. In other words, it forces all the members of the family to maintain a good conscience to one another. If they're not willing to maintain a good conscience to one another, they cannot really pray together. Then, if they're not willing to walk in open-faced fellowship, then they either don't pray at all or they engage in an empty, get-it-over-with-as-quick-as-you-can hypocritical ritual.

38:47 But no real prayer, nor singing, nor communion around the Word of God. So you see, this is a real benefit to the husband and to the wife in that it drives them to keep a clear conscience. And it's also a benefit to the children because, as we saw from those texts in the Old Testament, this is the instituted means which God is often pleased and ordinarily pleased to use for their salvation from their sins. All right, then, we come in the next place to the hindrances.

Hindrances to Family Means of Grace

39:29 Hindrances to family, to the family means of grace. And I have three hindrances. I'm sure you know more than knows, but I have three mentioned here. The first one is interruptions.

39:42 Seems like the phone is programmed to ring every night at the time of family devotions. Also, discordant schedules. Seems like everybody's so engaged in doing his own thing and has his own life plotted out in the family that nobody really has time to get together for prayer or reading the Bible or singing hymns together or for a time of stated instruction of the children in which we're going to talk about the Word of God. We have so many different things that we're interested in.

40:12 We're such a mobile, so many extracurricular activities with respect to the families and the families of God. And especially this is true as you get older that they've got the finger in so many pots that we don't have time to have it in the pot of family worship. So these discordant schedules are often a great hindrance. And then the third thing which is often a great hindrance is disruptions and alienations in fellowship between husband and wife which occur due to offenses and sin which have not been made right.

40:50 Now with respect to the interruptions, what can I say? Turn off your phone. That's what we do. Oh, but what if there's an emergency call?

41:01 Very well. What would you have done during the 1700s if there were an emergency call? Throughout all of history without a phone, how did people ever exist without telephones?

41:14 I don't know how they lived for all those years without a phone. Cannot you live without a phone for a few months a few minutes a half an hour a day? I think you could. I know we can.

41:30 How about discordant schedules? Discordant schedules?

41:36 You can't totally avoid interruptions. I'm sure people will show up on your doorstep during family devotions if you turn off your phone.

41:45 But in any event, you can make an effort to avoid the interruptions in your determination to have that time for family worship. Another thing, you can do is this. With regard to discordant schedules, you can make it a priority that you will have family worship. And if you make it a priority, then you will work it into your schedule.

42:08 When this was mentioned to the elders for practical suggestions, one of them said, lock in a fixed and unchangeable time. And when your family gets older, if it has to be in the morning rather than the evening, if it has to be at a mealtime when everybody's there, make it in the morning, make it in the evening, but lock in a fixed and unchangeable time in which as many as possible will be there. And if all can't be there, then you work in a special season of devotions for the ones who couldn't be. So in other words, it needs to be a matter of a priority which you work into your schedule in spite of your great busyness.

42:48 But the third thing is this, and that has to do with alienations and disruptions. And I'm afraid that perhaps more of a lack of prayer is related to this than we dare admit.

43:07 It's easy to say, well, we're too busy to have regular family devotions. It's easy to say, we're too interrupted. But is that really the truth? Is that really the truth?

43:20 Could it not be that if over long periods of time you have not had regular family devotions, the reason is that there's something disrupted in your relationship either with God or with your wife or with your children or with both. Either the vertical or the horizontal. And I suspect it is. And I suspect that the real reason why people go for long periods of time without family devotions at all is not because they're too interrupted and too busy.

43:53 It's because there's something disrupted in their relationship either with their family or with their God. And they don't want to be hypocrites. On the one hand, they're not prepared to deal with the disruption and to make themselves right with God or right with their wife or right with their husband. They're not prepared for that.

44:12 But on the other hand, it's too painful for them to sit there and go through the motions of prayer. So they avoid the family devotions altogether. And they make lovely excuses. You can always find excuses.

44:24 But what is the real issue? What is the root issue? How can people pray together? When there have been years of crusted over sins, years of wickedness, years of insensitivity and hurt and cruel words and never a word of apology.

44:44 Never a word of I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Never a word. Now you're going to come to your family.

44:49 Prayers? Not likely.

44:52 You see why the old adage says a family that prays together stays together? You know why that's so? Because prayer, perhaps the greatest hindrance to family prayer is a disruption of heart, ill will, hurt between husband, wife or a disruption between you and your God. That's perhaps the greatest hindrance to regular family prayer and instruction of your children.

45:25 So may the Lord be pleased to give us grace to be honest with ourselves and to look for these indicators. Has it been? That a long period of time has gone by and we've not had regular family worship. Could it be, my friend, that something's wrong in your heart with regard to your relation to your wife?

Dangers of Family Devotions

45:46 Use that as the thermometer and then deal with what's wrong and make it right. But then I would hasten in the last place to deal with what I call the dangers.

46:05 You know, family devotions is not without danger. And there are two dangers which stand out in my mind. The first danger is this. It is thinking that family devotions preclude the necessity for private and personal prayer.

46:21 It is thinking that because you have family devotions, therefore you do not need to have private and personal prayer. That's a great danger. But how does your responsibility as father and husband negate your responsibility as a disciple of Christ? It doesn't negate it.

46:41 No, as a matter of fact, the responsibility for family worship is built upon your responsibility for private and personal prayer. You cannot regularly neglect the secret place while you think to be able to maintain regular family devotions that have meaning and significance and are not simply going through a ritual. And you must not deceive yourself into saying, well, we've had family devotions, so I don't need to pray in my closet.

47:14 Jesus' statement in Matthew chapter 6 was, but you, singular, when you pray, enter into your closet. Unless, of course, you've had family devotions. In which case, you are exempted from the responsibility of closet prayer. You don't read that in Matthew 6.

47:34 You do not read that carrying on family devotions exempts you from the responsibility of secret prayer. Jesus never said that. That's what our own carnal hearts say.

47:48 That's not what Jesus said. That's what the carnal heart says. That is not what Jesus says. Nothing that you do exempts you from the duty of secret prayer, including family devotions.

48:05 But there's another danger as well. It is that family devotions can tend to become a mere ritual devotion. Devoid of real spiritual life and vigor. A mere ritual devoid of spiritual life and vigor.

48:21 You know when this happens? This happens when people are convinced we must have family devotions. So we read the Bible. We read a chapter of the Bible.

48:28 We go through our little prayer. It's the same prayer every night. It may not be the same words, but it's the same prayer. You pray for the same thing.

48:36 You pray the same emphasis. You pray the same way. There's no freshness. There's no vigor.

48:41 There's no light. Why not? Because the family devotions are simply engaged in as a ritual which is not related to an ongoing, expanding, personal walk with God and it's not related to an atmosphere in the family of living under the eye of God. An atmosphere in which the scriptures are opened.

49:02 An atmosphere of prayer so that when the family is going away on a journey, there's family prayer for the Lord's blessing. An atmosphere of prayer when the family faces a crisis. The family is gathered for prayer. An atmosphere of prayer must be the climate in which family devotions go on.

49:20 And if an atmosphere of prayer does not exist, then what you'll find is that family devotions will deteriorate, if you have them at all, into a meaningless and formalistic ritual which probably is very destructive to the children's understanding of true religion because they see true religion as something isolated from life and reality. It's just...

49:43 It's just a little hocus-pocus that you go through at mealtime and it has nothing to do with the way you live or the way you relate to each other by and large as a family. May God be pleased to deliver us from those dangers.

Practical Suggestions and Concluding Prayer

49:56 Well, our time is gone. Perhaps some of you would like some practical suggestions.

50:05 I have a couple for you. For you men, for scripture reading and study, I commend to you Matthew Poole's commentary. I commend to you Matthew Henry's commentary. I also commend to you I also commend to you J.C. Ryle's expository thoughts in the Gospels as something that you might consider in your family devotions.

50:26 Then, for your prayers, I suggest to you that you keep yourself a list of what your priorities ought to be and you go over it and ask yourself whether or not your family has been praying in terms of your priorities as a family and your concerns as a family. Then, I could also suggest to you with regard to the instruction of children, a book called Leading Little Ones to God which with some modification can be very helpful and also Spurgeon's Catechism for Young Children. I think you'll find that those things could also be very helpful in that regard. Now, I admit that's a pretty paltry statement with regard to practical suggestions and I would certainly be willing to try to do more on a more extended basis for any of you who would be interested. Well, let's pray and commit our time to the Lord.

51:22 Father, we give you thanks for this means of grace which you have instituted. We thank you, Lord, that you do set the solitary in families. We thank you, Lord, that you've given us our families and we thank you for the privilege of our Christian husbands and wives. We pray especially for those who are married to unconverted marriage partners.

51:42 We pray, Lord, that as they face the awesome pressures of family responsibility and the peculiar weight that's upon them, we pray that special help would be given to them to be able to train them and to train their children to be able to maintain that state of their own soul in the midst of that family tension and pressure. We pray also, Lord, that those of us who are privileged to have Christian families, oh, God, help us to take this to heart, especially us men. Help us to be faithful and reliable in training our children and in caring for our wife and in leading our children and our wives before the throne of grace and in the singing of hymns and psalms and in exposing them to the scriptures. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

52:27 Amen.