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Introductory Texts
1. Malachi 4:6
2. Romans 5:15
3. John 8:39
The Works of Abraham
1. Abraham obtained righteousness by faith.
2. He tithed.
3. He rescued Lot with 318 servants trained in his own household.
4. He commanded his children after him.
The Fatherhood of Abraham: Genesis 18:19
1. To circumcise his son.
2. To find him a wife.
3. To leave a legacy or an inheritance to his son.
4. To teach his son a trade
Two kinds of men:
1. Cannot accept responsibility
2. Accepts responsibility for self and for others
Your care for others is the measure of your greatness: Luke 9:47-48
1. The rise of fatherlessness
2. The immaturity of fathers
a. Moses
b. Eli
Taking responsibility
1. The responsibilities of men: Genesis 2:15
a. Guide, Guard Govern
b. Stewardship, relationship, leadership
2. Four responsibilities for fathers:
a. Make sure our sons and daughters are saved
b. Leave our children an inheritance of faith
c. We are to give our children a work ethic
d. We are to help them find a spouse.
Four things a father provides his family
1. Intimacy, discipline, love, and value
2. Counterfeit families
Application: Bring in the children, prayer for the children and for the fathers
My subject today is, “Turning the hearts of the fathers to the children.” This comes from Malachi, the last 2 verses, where God said He would send the spirit of the Prophet Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers, lest He smite the Earth with a curse.
How many of you are fathers here today? May I see your hands? How many of you have sons? How may of you have daughters? Now, listen to me. How many of you are more concerned about watching over your daughters and protecting them than you are your sons? That’s because you don’t want your daughter going out with a guy like you used to be!
When you pick up the Bible and begin to read Genesis 1, and you read the first five books of the Bible, you’ll find that it is simply the story of seven men. The first five books of the Bible are simply the story of seven men because all of God’s revelation comes through man. And when God wanted to reveal Himself in person, He did it in the man, Christ Jesus.
Now, I don’t want the ladies to think that I’m generically genderizing that—that only men get the revelation. I use the word “man” meaning “Mankind” because it embraces both men and women. The revelation of God simply comes through Mankind, or through His human creation on this Earth.
In Romans 5:15, it says, “For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more of the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”
God holds the man accountable. He does not say by one woman sin entered into the world; He says by one man. Eve was deceived; Adam made a choice. God still holds the man accountable, because God gave His commandments and His Word to the man, and Adam gave it to Eve.
Let us read out of John 8:39. Jesus is in a confrontation with some Jewish people, and they are challenging Him as to His statements, His veracity, His identity. They could find nothing wrong with Him. The only accusation they could make against Him was on the basis of His identity. And as He answered them, He said this to these who were questioning Him, trying to entrap Him: “They said, Abraham is our father. And Jesus saith unto them, If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.”
You would do the works of Abraham. If you’re taking notes, write the four works of Abraham:
1. Abraham obtained righteousness by faith. He entered into a covenant relationship with God, and as a sign of that covenant, he was given circumcision. For every covenant that God makes, God gives a sign of the covenant. It’s an external evidence of an internal work. With Noah, it was a rainbow. With Abraham, it was circumcision. With you and I, who have been born again, it’s water baptism. There’s always an external evidence of the internal work of a covenant relationship between God and man. And so it was that Abraham entered into a covenant with God, obtaining righteousness by faith and not by works.
2. He tithed. There are only three reasons a man won’t tithe: unbelief, fear, or greed. If every man in every church tithed, there would be no need for special offerings. So wait a minute, and listen to me! The next time the pastor takes a special offering, turn to the guy next to you and simply say, “When are you going to start tithing?”
3. He rescued Lot with 318 servants trained in his own household. If Abraham were a pastor today, that would mean that he rescued a man in difficulty with 318 men that were born into the Kingdom of God in his own church and discipled by the pastor.
4. He commanded his children after him. The Bible says in Genesis 18:19 that God said concerning Abraham, “For I know him that he will command his children after him.” God was commending Abraham saying, “I know that he will command his children after him, and they will follow the Lord.” God’s commendation of Abraham was not the fact that he was the father of the nations or become the father of the faithful, but that primarily and fundamentally, that he would be a father to his family.
The Bible later says in the New Testament that if you cannot pastor your family, then how can you be qualified to pastor God’s family in the church? Senator Dan Coats from Indiana was the first to say, “Home is the school of first instruction.” It always begins in the home, and it begins with the man because the atmosphere of the home is established by the man.
Consider the fact that Abraham would command his family. Abraham was given four responsibilities by God concerning his sons:
1) It was Abraham’s responsibility to circumcise his son. He circumcised Ishmael at 13 years, Isaac at 8 days.
2) It was Abraham’s responsibility to find him a wife. He found Rebecca when he sent the servant out to look for Isaac a wife
3) It was Abraham’s responsibility to leave a legacy or an inheritance to his son. If God did not want sons to inherit ministries, He would not be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those sons can inherit a ministry or a business, but they cannot inherit the anointing. Both Isaac and Jacob had to dig the wells of their father by themselves. Sons can inherit your business, they can inherit your ministry, they can inherit what God has given to you as the visionary, what God has given to you as the strong natural leader. They can inherit that from you, but they cannot inherit that relationship with God that made you what you are. They have to develop that and dig it for themselves.
4) It was Abraham’s responsibility to teach his sons a trade.
There are two kinds of men in this world. The first one in the Garden of Eden was named Adam. God the Father created Adam to be a son. He came to Adam, and God the Father said to Adam the son, “Did you do what I told you not to do? Did you take of the Tree?” Adam did not want to accept responsibility for his actions.
Maturity does not come with age, it begins with the acceptance of responsibility. That’s why some men are more mature at 17 than others are at 47. I said that one day in church and a lady in the front row yelled out, “67!”
It’s a father’s responsibility to help his son and his daughter mature. That’s why he will ask his son, “Did you do it?” before he corrects him or adds punishment to the correction. The father asks “Did you do it?” because he wants the child to accept responsibility.
Adam refused to accept responsibility for his actions and as a result of it lost his manhood and was expelled from Eden. That’s the bad news. Do you want the good news? There came another Adam! Tell me the name of the last Adam? Jesus! When Jesus came, He not only accepted responsibility for His actions, but He accepted responsibility for the actions of the entire world.
That’s the difference in men. Some cannot even accept responsibility for their own actions, and others who are Christlike can accept responsibility for the actions not only of themselves or their family but of the world for which Christ died.
Your care for others is the measure of your greatness. In the book of Luke 9:47-48 in The Living Bible, it says:
47Jesus, answering the men said, “Anyone who takes care of a little child like this is caring for me.
48And whoever cares for me is caring for God who sent me.”
Your care for others is the measure of your greatness. Jesus is great not simply because He was born of the Virgin, lived a sinless life, went about doing good, but He is great because He accepted the concern, the care, and the sin of the entire world. The measure of His greatness is how much He cared for others. It’s the same in your life.
We live in a day when they tell us that the breakdown of the family in America is the cause for the rise of crime, abortion, teenage pregnancies, and other assorted ills that are afflicting our society. Government agencies and researchers like Ken Canfield of the Center for Fathering have all attested to the fact that the root cause for the breakdown of the family is a thing called fatherlessness. Fatherlessness is not simply the absence from the family, but it’s an absence of concern for the family. It is a man’s refusal to be responsible not only for himself, but for the family. I add to that the fact that the core problem of fatherlessness is childishness—immature males in men’s bodies.
There are seven characteristics of a child: the center of its own universe, insensitive to others’ needs, demands its own way, has a temper tantrum if it’s not catered to, is unreasonable, irresponsible, and only subject to concrete authority. Why do I think of baseball and football players when I read that? Those are the characteristics of a child. Irresponsibility leads to the characteristics of fatherlessness which causes the breakdown of the family.
There are three verses in Exodus the fourth chapter concerning Moses, the friend of God who spoke face to face with God. It says that God stood in his way and sought to kill Moses, when suddenly his wife Zipporah took a sharp stone and circumcised his son and then with disdain looked at her husband and said, “Thou are a bloody husband to me.” Just three verses. But the significance far exceeds any measure of the writing in Scripture. The reason why God did it was because Moses failed to circumcise his son. If he was going to do Abraham’s works, he had to circumcise his son. But he failed to do it because he was busy with his ministry. He left the care to his wife, and Zipporah was a Midianite, and she did not follow the ways of Israel. And so Moses indulged his son because he deferred to his wife. No man is ever an exception to God’s Law! Not Abraham, not Moses, not me, not you, no man! Because God holds the man accountable.
God said to Moses, “No way!” And when she circumcised the son—and did what Moses should have done—God stayed the executioner’s hand. Then Moses sent her back to her father, and it took her father to bring her back later on. Moses should have circumcised his son, and God was ready to judge him. The application today is in his failure to see his son saved, discipled, brought up in the nature and admonition of the Lord. Say it how you will, it all comes out the same way.
The Prophet Eli, his posterity was cut off because the Bible says God said to him, “Your sons made themselves vile, and you did not restrain them.” And God said to Eli, “You have honored your sons above Me.” And as a result of it, God cut off his posterity. Eli was a priest, but he sacrificed his family on the altar of his ministry. His ministry meant more to him than his relationship to God and to his family. We still have Christian men today who are sacrificing their family on the altar of their ministry, or businessmen who are sacrificing their family on the altar of their business. I want you to know something right now. God said, “If you have ought against somebody, go and make it right” because relationship precedes ministry.
In Genesis 2:15, the Bible says that we are to guard, guide, and govern. That’s our threefold responsibility as a man on this Earth, both in our profession and with our family. The sum total of your life is embraced in three things: stewardship, relationship, and leadership. Your manhood is discovered, made manifest, and known by stewardship, relationship, and leadership. Eli’s sons became churchwise. They grew up in the temple, but they were churchwise.
Years ago, I taught the principle of “release” through forgiveness at Teen Challenge. Because of the phenomenal way that it was received in the hearts of the people, I called back to make sure the response I witnessed was valid. The leader said to me, “You have to understand. The men who come here are streetwise, they’re profane, they’re hard of heart. They’ve learned to con parents, manipulate people, do things to impress, and they’re insolent in spirit.” When I started to write that in the book COURAGE, the marketing manager said, “I’m going to help you get this into the hand of every man in the church.” I said, “Why?” She said, “Because there are not only those who are streetwise, there are those that are churchwise, and the only difference between the streetwise and the churchwise is that one is profane while the other is religious. But, they’re both hard of heart, learned to con parents, manipulate people, do things only to impress, insolent in manner.” I submit to you today that just because the streetwise are made that way by streetwise dads or by fatherless dads, you and I sitting here today do not want our sons and daughters to be streetwise nor churchwise, but to be Godwise!
It’s our responsibility as fathers not to make all of our childrens’ decision for them, but to let our children see us make ours. That’s true because children will not always listen to you, but they will always imitate you. The rule of fatherhood for a believing Christian is: Follow me as I follow Christ.
I want to give you four things that, if we have been born of Abraham’s seed, which is to be part of the faithful, if we are born again and have received Christ’s righteousness by faith, then these are the four things that God wants us to do as fathers:
1. To make sure our son is circumcised, and that doesn’t mean in the physical. That means to make sure that our sons and daughters are saved. That’s our #1 priority. That’s the one thing that God wants above all others because God is a God of perpetuity, and He wants our sons and daughters to come to know Him. Our #1 priority is the salvation of our children.
Let me just tell you this. Men and nations are not great by the virtue of their wealth but by the wealth of their virtue.
2. We have to leave our children an inheritance. The greatest legacy you can give your children is the legacy of faith. And many of us sitting here have never sat down with our children and shared our testimony with them of how God saved us from out of our profligacy, our pride, our arrogance, our degradation—whatever it may be. Our sons and daughters born into our family now only see us in a Christian context. So when we try to prevent them from going through what we went through, all they do is think we are preaching to them. Your greatest legacy to your son and your daughter is your testimony of what Jesus Christ to transform your life and save you and change you from a sinner to a saint!
3. We are to teach our children a trade. That means for you and me to give them a work ethic. In this day and age, that’s vitally important. We are to give them the study habits whereby they can learn.
4. We are to help them find a spouse. Consider this with me. Marriage is the second most important decision we make in life. First is to receive Christ as our savior, second is to receive a spouse. This is because marriage can be the closest thing to a hell or a heaven you may ever have on the face of this Earth.
As a man with your son or daughter, you need to teach them. It’s your responsibility to teach them that marriage is a covenant relationship and that for every covenant that God makes, He gives a sign of the covenant. And the sign of the covenant of marriage is sex. Sex is the sign of the covenant of marriage. In our system of jurisprudence in America, until a man and woman consummate their marriage with sexual union, even after reciting their matrimonial vows, if they don’t consummate it with sexual union, it’s just as if they never got married and they can get an annulment. That’s why Hebrews 13:4 says, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled.”
We build so much of our restraint upon our children not to have premarital sex or engage in illicit liaisons, but we base it on the negative—you may get pregnant, you may get a venereal disease, you may get this. As you sit here right now, in your life, in your son and daughter’s life, God has given you only one thing you can give one time to one person in one lifetime. God has given to every man, every son, every daughter, every man, every woman—God has given a priceless gift so rare, so valuable that it is one gift you can only give one time to one person in one lifetime. And when you give that person that gift, it shows them they are the most unique person in the world to you. That by giving them that one gift, you give them something no other person will ever have in the world. If you’re a man and you give it to a woman, it’s to show her that there is no other woman in the world that will ever have it. It is hers and hers alone!
Your son and daughter need to understand that virginity is the one gift that God has given to them one time to give to one person in one lifetime. And when they give that gift of virginity to that one person in marriage, it shows them that they are uniquely the one person above all others that they love with their entire life. Virginity is not something to be thrown away, discarded, or let organizations with disdain view it as an anachronistic throwback to a Victorian era. We protect our daughters and our sons with truth. Only truth will set you free.
Let me ask you a question. How many of you wish you had heard that truth years ago? How many of you think our sons and daughters need to hear that today?
That’s our responsibility! You cannot leave it up to television. You cannot leave it up to the Sunday school teacher. You cannot leave it up to pastor. You cannot leave it up to school systems. You cannot leave it up to anybody. God holds us as men accountable and no one else! We are the head of the family. But if seducing spirits and doctrines of devils can either morally eviscerate or spiritually emasculate us, they can decimate the family. Eli caused his son to be fatherless. Moses caused his son to be fatherless. David caused his son Adonijah to be fatherless. Why did these men fail? Because they did not do the works of Abraham and disciple their son and their daughters.
Our responsibility as men—as fathers—is to ensure the salvation of our children, to leave them a legacy of faith, to teach them how to be productive on their own, and to teach them the moral standards of God’s Word. Lower morality always leads to higher mortality. Hold the standard high, and the walls that have been built to keep us from God’s Word, and doing God’s Will, will come down! And our sons and daughters will grow up not to be streetwise, not to be churchwise, but to be what? Godwise! Turn to the guy next to you and say, “Boy, this was good for you today!”
Now, if you’re taking notes, this comes down to four things that you provide your family. I’ve given you four that you give your family. Here’s the four things you provide:
God, through Jesus Christ, provides His family with intimacy, discipline, love, and value. Those are the things that God through Christ provides His family, His Church. They are the four things a successful pastor provides his congregation: intimacy, discipline, love, and value. The four things a father must provide his family for normalcy of upbringing are: Intimacy, discipline, love, and value. Say it with me, everybody in the building! Intimacy, discipline, love, value. One more time! Intimacy, discipline, love, and value.
Now watch me closely. Why are gangs proliferating in our country and around the world? Because gangs provide four things: intimacy, discipline, love, and value. Gangs are counterfeit families. Prisons are counterfeit families. Cults are counterfeit families.
And where we as fathers do not provide those four things for our family, they will find a counterfeit family that will provide them—whether it’s a gang or a prison or a cult, or whatever it may be. We are the bastion, the barrier, the parapet. We are that one who provides for our children what God says He provides His family and His children so that they do not go looking to a counterfeit family to provide for it.
We’re fathers here today. I’ve got some good news for you. We’ve got some sons and daughters here today. How many of you think it would be a good thing to bring the children in? Let’s pray over the children. Do you think that’s a good thing? I want the children to come marching in wherever the children are! Let the children come marching in! Here they come! Come on, quickly! You are young enough to run! Come on! Come running!
On behalf of all of these that are here looking down at you children standing here, you’re our sons, our daughters, you’re our grandsons and granddaughters, you’re our nieces and nephews, and we love you. But let me tell you something. As fathers, we have not always been perfect. We haven’t always done the right thing. And sometimes we’ve been a little too harsh because we don’t want you to have to go through what we’ve gone through. And where we have been overbearing, where we have been harsh, dictatorial, authoritative, where we have not let you express yourself adequately the way you want to, I want to stand here on behalf of all of us that are here to just ask you seriously: forgive us as fathers and grandfathers. For our hurts that we may have caused you because we have not really wanted to do it. We want you to know we love you. You are our sons and daughters.
All we really want to be is a good dad. But, you see, nobody taught us that to be a good earthly father, you have to first learn to be a good son. And many of us didn’t have good earthly fathers. But God is teaching us that if we become good sons of God, it will help us and equip us to be good earthly fathers. And so that’s what we’re trying to do. And we want you to know that. Right now, we fathers who are here want to stretch our hands out toward you that are our sons, and we want to bestow a blessing upon you, and we want to pray for God’s anointing to come upon you in a fresh way.
How many of you, as you stand here right now, would be willing to forgive us of what we have done to you? Would you be willing? Thank you.
Alright, Dads! Join your children here, or stretch your hands toward them! I want every one of you to pray your blessing upon these your children and grandchildren! I want to hear you pray! I don’t want you to pray silently! Don’t treat this like church! I want you to pray out loud and pray your blessing upon these sons and grandsons, these daughters and granddaughters right now! Every one of you! Pray your prayer blessing! Pray your prayer of covenant grace! Pray the prayer of faith over your children and grandchildren that are here today! Here they are.
“Now, Father, in the name of Jesus, we stretch our hands out toward these, our children, and Lord, we ask You to help them to forgive us of the things that we’ve done wrong, the errors that we’ve made, the sins that we’ve committed toward them. We ask You to cleanse them of those things. We ask You to help them to forgive us and to release that out of their lives so they don’t have to bear that the rest of their life. And Lord, we pray for Your blessing to be upon them. We pronounce the blessing of the covenant grace of God upon their lives, and we commit them to the Kingdom of God both now and eternally that Lord, they will never know the depths of depravity, but that You would keep them in grace, keep them in faith, keep them unto the blood, and God cause them to grow up to bring honor and glory and praise to Your Holy Name for Your Kingdom’s glory, in Jesus’ name we pray! Amen!”
Now, you children that are here, turn around and face your fathers and grandfathers out there. I want you to stretch your hand out toward them—all of you—and I want you to pray for them right now. You just pray for them right now. Pray for them! Pray for your father! Pray for your grandfather! Pray for God’s blessing upon them! Forgive them! Release them! Renew the relationship in Jesus’ name!
“Father, as children, we stand here today unto the anointing of Your Spirit, willing to forgive, desiring to forgive, to be released not only from the errors of the past but into a new relationship—a covenant relationship with God in Christ through the shedding of blood. Lord, even as children stretch their hands out toward fathers, may fathers receive the grace and the faith and the love from their children. I pray God that this will be a time of new beginnings in the name of Jesus for both fathers and children to the honor and the glory of Your Name. Amen!”
