Well, good morning to you all. I am very thankful to see so many dads here this morning. I want to draw your attention to two products that may help you if you've seen our table, Western Conservatory, down in the vending hall. This is a project that I did with my sons called Father to Son, how manly conversations can change the culture. And so many dads have been asking just, Mr.

Botkin, how do you talk to your sons? I never had a dad that did that with me. And so that's true for most American men of our generation. So where do we begin? It's a lot easier than many of us think.

And that's what we try to show in this series, how it works. I take each one of my five sons and I have conversations with them and we roll camera on it to see what happens. And so the topics that we talk about are work and adventure, worship, warfare and dominion. And with each son we dig into each topic a little bit. And families have found it helpful, dads have found it helpful to see that it's really not that hard.

It's kind of like Jesus with a woman at the well. You sit down and you talk. You sit down and you talk. Now this is a project that we worked on together as a family, and my children produced this primarily on their own by themselves. It's called Home School dropouts, and we're giving one of these away free with any purchase down there.

So take a look at our table, please. This covers the predominant sins of our generation. And my children talk about their own sins and how they need to be aware of what they are so that they can have mastery over them. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to talk about this institution of the family you've given us.

And we are cognizant this weekend that there is a battle on for our families, for the hearts and the souls of our children, and for our entire culture. And so we ask you today, Lord, help us to see what we can begin doing in the jurisdiction you've given us and we thank you that we do have the freedom to be able to gather our families together and lead them and guide them. So Lord help us all. We are all so young at this and there's so much we have to learn about this. So Lord help us as we take steps To learn what it means to lead as a family, to learn what it means to bow the knee to Jesus Christ, and to worship you in the ways that we should in the home.

And so we commit this time to you now for the honor of Jesus Christ in His name and His authority. We ask you these things. Amen. Okay, gentlemen, anytime we talk about fatherhood, we're talking about manhood. And so This is a message about manhood.

And messages about worship are also messages about manhood. One very important definition of manhood that I like to give men because the culture teaches something different, something very opposite. Real men walk with God. Real men absolutely walk with God every day. They're not afraid of that.

They're not ashamed of that. They walk with God every day. But we have a problem today. And you've heard it. There are people who throw this phrase around and they misdefine it.

And they've turned it into something very weak and that doesn't mean anything. And there are many homeschooling families who say, well, isn't it, you know, haven't I succeeded if I've simply got my children to walk with God, but in this country right now during this generation, what does that mean? In many circles it just means, well, They're not on drugs, they're not in jail. They go to church occasionally when they're adults. And isn't that still walking with God?

My children, praise God, my children are still walking with God. Which means typically, from where I'm from down in Tennessee, they haven't completely turned their backs on Christianity and Jesus Christ. They still call themselves Christians and yes, they still do occasionally go to church as adults. This is not walking with God. Walking with God, let me give you the definition, is knowing God and His law, serving it actively.

And when that word serving it means you're keeping it, you know the law of God and you're keeping it, and leading others blamelessly in the ways of obedience. You're not walking with God unless you're leading others, unless you're a disciple maker. And by the way, everyone is a disciple maker. Everyone is a disciple maker. Your seven-year-old daughter is a disciple maker.

She is teaching others by her example. Something. All the time. And all her little friends are disciple makers. And You need to be aware and you need to know what's being taught in my culture, in my church, in my family, in my community.

Who's leading and how are they leading? Who are the good influences? Who are the bad influences? Everybody is a disciple maker. Everyone is discipling someone in some direction.

Your culture is discipling you and your children from the billboards to everything that they see around them. They are overwhelmed and drowning in influences of disciple making for evil in this country. Do you see what walking with God is? This is so important. You must be leading and discipling if you're walking with God.

Everyone who walks with God leads others in the ways of obedience. And Now I want to give you a definition of worship that has helped many people who are here. And this is broken down to its most very basic idea. Worship is faithful service. Serving is doing what?

Serving is obeying and keeping the law. Worship is faithful service to God's ethical standard. But it's done with the right attitude. In all reverence, whether it's private or public privately and publicly this is our worship is done serving god's ethical standard true worship is the modeling of reverend obedience at all times without hypocrisy in your home now mister on doctor joe more craft has has helped us and you're very well nail many of the definitions of worship. And I want you to know I agree with Dr.

Moorcraft. There's something very special about congregational worship on Sunday. Now he's made the point that there are many other things that happen all during our lives, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And there are things that we do that are worshipful, But there is a difference between congregational worship when the saints gather together as a family. And there are things that are different when your family gathers together for worship as a family.

And there are things that you do that are categorized biblically as worship 24 hours a day if you're leading, if you're guiding, if you're walking with God reverently with the right attitude, obeying Him, showing your children how they need to walk with you. And so your goal, fathers, is to walk with God and so teach your children that they can move through life doing the very same thing on their own power. Now I don't mean on their own the strength of their arm. I mean that you're not having to hold them up with training wheels or something, okay? That they're moving through life with spiritual strength given to them by the Holy Spirit.

And so let me ask you three penetrating questions, and this is what I ask myself. When I get alone with the Lord for private worship, private times, these are the questions that I ask myself. And as my children have gotten older, they really nag at my heart. Here they are. Is God pleased with the way that I'm doing it.

And so when I sit down to pray and open the Word and I begin with crying out to the Lord to show me Where I'm failing in these duties and responsibilities so that I can be pleasing to him. And Dad's, you know, he fills my mind with shortcomings. And it doesn't take very long for me to see every single day when I sit down with the Lord, wow, yes, I have shortcomings in this area. And it's mostly points of negligence on my part, and not doing the things that I want. I want to be a disciple maker.

I want to be walking with God I want to be leading my children here's one of my biggest shortcomings I'm not verbal enough with my wife and with my children I have a tendency to just kind of assume they know everything I know. You know, even the very young ones. And this has been, it's come crashing home to me. I was so careful with my first two children to really hammer home a lot of the lessons that I wanted them to learn and then I sort of just drifted into this default position just thinking that all the rest of my children that came along would know these very same things. Well they don't.

They need the father and the mother to be speaking to them all the time about these things, interpreting the world to them all the time. And dads, you must train yourselves to be more verbal. You must be more verbal. You must be teaching, interpreting, talking to your children all the time, informing them. When you go, especially when you go out of the home with them, and take them with you.

I used to take my children, Alan mentioned that I've worked in politics for a long time in Washington. I would try to take one of my children with me every time, no matter who I was meeting with. And they learned a lot from it. They learned a lot. So driving down there, we would – it was just – it was a whole educational experience just to drive in the car where we went past military neighborhoods, past slums into the nation's capital, past billboards, and fathers need to speak.

Son, that's wrong. That's ugly. That's unjust. God hates that. God's pleased with that.

Take a look at this. Notice this. Understand this. Dad, you need to train yourselves to be verbal more verbal next question What have I imparted to my children What will I have imparted to my children by the end of their childhood and by the end of my life? As our days are ticking back by and We need to make such a good investment in our children every single day to be building into them, training them.

What will I have imparted to my children by the end of their childhood? And as I think through the things that are the most important parts of my legacy, I think through every one of my children. I think, can they defend these things that are important to their father? Do they understand ecclesiology? And I have worked so hard to understand these things about worship, about the structure of the church, the governance of the church.

And again, I default to the error thinking, well, somehow my sons have just picked this up just by being around their dad. They have not unless I have imparted it to them and tested them to see if they can stand in the gates and defend it and understand it. Next question. Will my children truly be able to walk with God on their own under the power of their own convictions? This is what I mean by on their own power.

The power of their own convictions, spiritual power, without being pulled into submission and service to rival ethical systems. If they are serving the ethical systems of our day. They are worshiping other gods and serving other gods. They are worshiping other gods and serving other gods. And so, okay, definition.

Here we go. We're getting into our topic now. What is family worship? And I'm beginning and we'll talk... As I've said and some of you who are coming in late, I'll just give a little quick recap.

There are many different forms of formal worship with the congregation and families of the saints. And there are times of more solemn worship in the home. There are many things that we do worship fully all through the day, 24 hours a day, as we submit and bow the knee to Christ and bring up his law and teach his laws as we walk in the way that is all worship but we can't say and Joe Markraff nailed this very well we can't say that worship is all of life we have to be careful about how we use that definition. Worship is happening in our lives as the Christians as we pray without ceasing, as we obey without ceasing, as we submit ourselves reverently and obediently to God every minute. That is worshipful.

This is how we worship God in spirit and in truth. But now let's focus in a little bit on what we might call family devotions, Bible time, time with Father, family altar, and I've heard it called many different things. Here's a question that I received. Let me move forward here. This is verbatim, a question that I received in writing from a father who says this, I'm a father with a heart for leading Bible time.

I have five very energetic daughters from Two months to nine years old. Our Bible times often consists of trying to bring order and discipline to the situation, and I often feel like I didn't connect and communicate with my children like I wanted to. Do you have any advice? Now here, Okay, how many can identify with this question? Here's what I told him.

You have just described one of the priority traits of the Christian faith. One aspect of obedient, reverent worship is bringing order and discipline to the world. Did you catch that? Bringing order and discipline to the world. This is our job as Christians.

This is the dominion mandate. This is how we fulfill the Great Commission. We are to bring order and discipline to everything. For young children, I go on to say, learning self-governance in subjection to a God-ordained authority is a primary victory in fulfilling your duty as a father. For a two-year-old, sitting self-composed in a family circle attentive to her father's eyes and voice is an achievement of cosmic significance.

She has an orderly relationship with a loving authority. She's learning how to listen to personalized instruction and respond. And this one main discipline of life... This is one main discipline of lifelong daily worship. Listening and responding.

This is crucial in modeling reverence and obedience. And so this daddy, I encouraged him That he is seeing victory if all he's doing with his little ones is bringing order and discipline to them. And so that they're able to have this relationship with a loving father listening, watching his eyes, listening to his voice. Do you see how they are getting the disciplines that they will need in life to relate to God the Father? And so he is succeeding.

He feels like he's failing, but he's succeeding. He's succeeding in gathering his family for this. And so practical advice, parents, that I give to young daddies and I give to old daddies, gather your family together, gather your children with a shepherd's heart. Your goal in doing family worship or what this daddy calls Bible time is not to perform some chore that's required of all Christians who go to church or all home schoolers who homeschool their children or all daddies who just have children. It's not a chore you check off.

You have duties of discipleship. Your duties are to disciple your children into simple and pure devotion to Christ. Not religious ceremony and ritual. Simple and pure devotion to Christ. As a shepherd, You must develop a shepherd's heart thinking and praying about every aspect of your child's souls.

If you want to know what a shepherd's heart is, read Paul's letters. He writes with a shepherd's heart. Read David's prayers. He prays with a shepherd's heart for his people. Second Corinthians 11 verse 3 says, Paul's writing to the Corinthians, I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his...

He's concerned for the people that he has responsibilities to. I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. He sees the priority, what he needs to be giving them. And daddies, you need to have the same shepherd's heart for your children. So I want to run through real quickly now, seven lessons to teach your children So that they will understand what family worship is and be able to continue it in their families point number one lesson number one Religion and worship is not religious formula or formulas plural Worship is not religious formula In Mark 12 33 the Lord is talking to a scribe.

And the scribe says in trying to define what's important, to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as his himself is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices says this scribe. And when Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, he said, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that no one would venture to ask him any more questions. And so this is what the scribe knew is lesson number one. Worship is not religious formula.

It's loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. The popular verse, Micah 6-8, is preceded by a verse that very few people read, And I want to read it to you this morning. Micah 6 verse 7. Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams? These are sacrificial rams he's referring to.

Offered in religious ceremony. Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Can I get more religious? Is this what I have to do? To be pleasing to the Lord and to worship.

Maybe I should sacrifice my first born son. Would that be religious enough? Is the point that's being made in the verse. Then verse 8. He has told you, O man, what is good.

He has told you, O man. And this is like the Lord and the Holy Spirit saying do you not yet see the essence of what real worship really is he's told you oh man what is good And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness or mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. And this, men, do you see, this is what your children have to see and learn and understand. It's not that, okay, in our family, we always have family worship at 730 in the evening in this corner of the living room, and this is what we do. This is our little order of worship.

And so children you have to always do this. This is just how it's done. Your goal is to teach them the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ and tell them what the Lord really requires of them. What does He require? Look at this, how simple this is.

But to do justice. Now what does that mean? If they're going to do justice, they must know the law of God. So that is you've got to be teaching them the law of God in the home, don't you? Or they will never be able to do justice, and neither will you, and neither will your wife when the two-year-old says, but I had it first.

Make her give it back to me. You've got to bring justice to bear in every situation. Parents this is your duty and your requirement and if you don't know what God's law says on that toy in the hands of that child who's stolen it away from the person that really owns the toy. You need to study your scripture so you can do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. And these things is what you will be teaching your children when you gather them together with a shepherd's heart.

Family worship is a father's deliberate and consistent daily calibration of his family to reverence and obedience. This is how, this is how when dad said, okay, Mr. Botkin, what does it look like? You've got to, you've got to help me. You've got to show me.

We never did it in our home we never did it in my home when I was growing up this is how I break it down for fathers isn't in the most simple ways that I can. It's your family worship as a father's deliberate and consistent daily calibration of his family to reverence and obedience. It's not calibration to a ritual, okay? There's the corner of the living room where we're meeting at 730. You're calibrating your family to reverence and obedience.

The attitude they must have before God Almighty. And you're gathering them together to model that for them. And then obedience to show them what obedience really is. These two words reverence and obedience really are the words used for worship in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, in the Hebrew and the Greek. And they're often used in the very, very same sentence.

Here's an example in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 13, 10. "'This wicked people who refuse to listen to my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them, to serve them, and to bow down to them. And so these two words are together. Obedience and reverence. Serving as obedience.

Bowing down as reverence. They've gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. Let them be just like this waste man which is totally worthless. Remember what Dr. Joe said, your worship can be worthless to God.

And it always will be without reverence and obedience. Here's a New Testament example. Jesus said to him, go Satan, it is written, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Worship is the reverent part. The word reverence and serving is obedience.

Obeying the ethical standard of one sovereign authority. And this is why we have always been warned. His people have always been warned. Don't go serving the other ethical standards of these other rival religions and deities. Or you're giving them reverence and obedience.

You're giving them worship. And So these two words must go together when we define worship. Reverence and obedience. You need to calibrate your family daily to reverence and obedience. You know, we never did, in our homeschooling, we never did a little sort of Bible program as one of the subjects that the children did.

We wanted Bible to be so much an integral part of everything that happened in the home. We never did that for school. We wanted the Bible out. We wanted them calibrated for reverence and obedience to the Scripture. We didn't want Scripture to be a chore, a bore for them having to just get through it, check it off the list, and then go on to algebra.

We want them to be calibrated. And, dads, family worship will be how you gather your family for that. And let me just give you a warning. God can hate it if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, with the wrong attitude yourself, and you're setting the wrong example, and you're discipling them into grudging observance of something. You cannot do that.

Worship is real world service to God in His ethical system of governance And that includes everything, including getting your attitude right. It's about real life application of His law with the right attitude, with the right attitude at all times. God can really hate it. I want to take you... Look at this verse.

He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination. God can hate your prayers. It can be an abomination to him if you're not listening to his law and submitting yourself and bowing the knee to him yourself as you gather your family. Here's another passage. Share this one with my family.

Often when you come to appear before me, this is Isaiah chapter 1, when the Lord is beginning his reproof of a people who are very religious. They honor him with their lips but their hearts are aware, Way far away from him. Isaiah 1 verse 12, when you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? He's saying, okay, you're coming to appear, but you've gathered together in a holy convocation for worship, and you're trampling my law and my courts and my justice and my judgment and my righteousness and my holiness into the ground. Who told you to do that when you come before me?

Verse 13, Bring your worthless offerings no longer. Incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity in the solemn assembly. And if you daddies are bringing your families together and it's like one of these solemn assemblies that God cannot abide, He cannot bless your families.

Verse 14, I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts. They have become a burden to me. I'm weary of burying them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you yes even though you multiply prayers I will not listen your hands are covered with blood and then he goes on verse 17 says learn to do good seek justice reprove the ruthless defend the orphan plead for the widow And that's when you calibrate your families to obedience and reverence. They will want to be doing these things for the poor, for others.

They'll want to make their religion real and genuine, pure, undefiled. The great reformer, Farrell, said this to the Italians, no act of worship has any merit. He's trying to get them pulled away from Roman Catholic ritual and ceremony, an empty tradition that angered God. And he said to them, no act of worship has any merit. Christian worship consists in faith in the gospel, in charity, in confession of Christ.

This is worship in spirit and in truth. Do your children know this? And so here's the question I get. Mr. Botkin, okay.

So all right, you've given me the theology, but what does it look like in the home when you gather your family to calibrate them to reverence and obedience? What does that look like? What does it look like in the home? The first thing I just want to say is, dads, develop the discipline of being able to command your children and your family. And that doesn't mean as a tyrant.

It just means, hey children, here's the phrase that my children have known to recognize when I say, get your Bibles and your notebooks. And then what that means is, okay, we're all going to sit down together and we're going to have family worship. So I say, get your Bibles and your notebooks. And the notebooks is because every day I have them read and I have them write in their notebooks so I can look at their notebooks and see what they're learning. They write down verses.

I say, read the word, looking for commands to obey. The wise of heart receive commands. And they know their daddy reads the Bible in that way. I'm looking for commands to obey. And so this is largely what they put in their notebooks.

They put prayers in their notebooks. They put... My son Benjamin, I saw a photograph the other day of a whole stack of notebooks that he's filled up and he's kept of Just his observations, things that he's learned, things that he writes down. If you want to be wise, you'll walk with wise men, and he's done that as a child, as a young man, now as a daddy with two little children of his own. And here he is, I saw him yesterday, taking notes from what wise men were saying, putting them in his notebook.

Lead your families. Lead your families. We don't have a set time for family worship in our home, you know, like it's clockwork. Sometimes I'll say, I'll make an announcement before we all go to bed, let's meet at seven to read together. And so they know that, okay, we're going to gather at seven to read, or whenever it might be.

But oftentimes I'm calling them together. And men, you need to be willing, able, ready, instant to call your family if they ever need to be calibrated to reverence and obedience, walking through them all. I've done this in a strange city, in an uncomfortable situation where they're being bombarded with hostile ideas, and I want to make sure that they're calibrated, protected, focused, not being pulled away. I'll call them together and say, do you see that over there? God hates that.

That's wrong. I mean, and this, do you realize if it's only 30 seconds or a minute, you've gathered your families, you've calibrated them, you've protected them, you've pointed them to Christ, you've reminded them of the law of God. This is how you lead and protect your families at home. You can have family worship. Here's one thing that has been memorable to my children.

I mean, many of these really short ones are so memorable to the children. We were at one time in a hard situation. We were in an unfamiliar city. We had a whole lot of things happen that were unexpected setbacks at one point. And I had not been responding well to the test.

I was not passing the moral test. And I was grouchy and grumpy and they couldn't see all that and they certainly couldn't see my attitude of fear and anxiousness which is sin. And so I remember being convicted by the Holy Spirit and calling my children together and My wife and we were standing outside I Remember in the mosquitoes. It wasn't a very long meeting, but they remember it. It was short.

It was to the point children dad is sinned I'm going through a moral test and I haven't passed the test well and here's where I've sinned and here's where the Bible what the Bible says about it And I repent and would you forgive me. And I'm recalibrating myself to righteousness and holiness and to the law of God and to reverence and obedience and they're learning from that. And they're seeing it. And I'm calling them, even though I'm confessing my own sin, they're learning by their Father's example to be able to do that in their own lives. And thus they are calibrated to reverence and obedience.

Because they want to... Daddies, your children need to see a man who fears God. Who fears God in all things. In your finances. In your temptations to sin.

Your children need to see and you need to show them this, and if you're a verbal man and if you're faithful to gather your families, you will show them things they will never, never forget about the miracle, the supernatural relationship that they can have with God because they see that you have it. And you must show this to them genuinely. And you must be spending time in private prayer getting with the Lord and confessing your sins and asking Him to show you your sins so that you get them out of your house. Let me just say, what else does it look like? Praying together.

Hearing Father pray. Talking about what you've discovered in the Bible. Reading and pausing to discuss. Dr. Mortgraft has shared how he did a lot of family worship at the dinner table.

Now when we get together at the dinner table, I in my family, and you men decide what you want to do with your families. Dinner time at our table when our children were say from 6 to 18 in that age range. The dinner table was a very rollicking kind of time of Lots of interaction with Bibles out on the table, books, newspapers, things, talking about it. That was not our family worship time. I wanted for family worship things to be a little bit more solemn.

And we usually Get up from the table and go into the living room and sit down with Bibles and notebooks for that. For prayer. But 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, hour and a half. You know, talking about the Bible and the law of God and applying the law of God at the dinner table. It was like family worship, wasn't it?

And it was like Bible time. But I have often made a distinction, you know, when I say, okay, get your Bibles and notebooks, sit down, and there's a tone of reverence in the family. And dads, you're the worship leader. You lead that by your example. You set a tone of gravitas in your home.

Now I wanted the atmosphere at the table to be just a little bit more lively and fun And for the children to feel really free at being able to ask a question and talk back and forth to one another. And when we sit down and we're having a little bit more formal time together, they're very careful about what they say for good reason. And men, you know, in our churches when we gather. And our children are learning when they do this. You know, I need to have a very careful, reverent attitude in following the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not going to interrupt Daddy and say, Daddy, you know, what about our plans for the beach? And get the whole family totally off topic and off subject. How is the Holy Spirit leading when you're sitting down? Dads, you take the lead and let the whole family know by the way that you lead. Remember your job.

You're trying to show them what it means to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. So you open up the law of God to them. That's the primary thing we did in family worship. We prayed together. And just some very quick, simple things that we've learned.

Daddies, keep it simple and keep it short, especially when your children are young. Now when they're spread all over the age range, you need to be careful, wise, creative in what you do. The point is to build a reverent attitude in your home and the hearts of your children. Create an entire atmosphere, a culture in your home of gathering together and being able to talk about these things. Keep it simple and keep it short.

You can pray and rejoice like David. And sometimes we just read some of the Psalms. But in the way that you daddies read the Psalms will make all the difference. Just an example, Psalm 119 verse 1. Oh, I am so thankful the Lord put the Psalms and Scripture for us.

And if you men can communicate that when you read to your families and they can see how much You agree with a man of God like David. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. Children, do you realize, do you know, there's blessing. This is the terms of the covenant, children. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies.

That means, children, observing it means keeping his testimonies. Obeying him. Who seek him with all their heart, with reverence. They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways.

Children, do you see what it means to walk with the Lord and to walk in His ways? To walk in the law of God like David loved to do. The law was not a burden to him. He wanted to take this yoke on himself. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently.

Children, this is why the Lord wrote these things down for us, that we should keep them diligently. Oh, that my ways may be established to keep thy statutes. Children, Do you hear how David is praying? Do you hear his heart, oh that my ways may be established to keep your statutes and then I shall not be ashamed when I look upon all your commandments. Children, you know when you feel ashamed?

Do you know what the conscience is? My little daughter, she's not little anymore, Elizabeth, said, Daddy, I remember when you were showing us some scenes from Pinocchio and you said, that Jiminy Cricket, he is not a good conscience. And then we talked about what the conscience was. And they learned about the conscience. They learned what it meant to have a tender conscience and not to sear it over.

And teach them to pray. You need to teach your children, Mr. Botkin, what about my children who are not Christians yet? What do I do with them? You must require your children who are not yet Christians to be with you in family worship.

You must require them to read the Bible on their own. You must require them to pray and to learn to pray. Let me read you something. This is from the Directory for Family Worship approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for piety and uniformity in secret and private worship and mutual edification with an act of the General Assembly the year of 1647 these pastors got together and they realized that the families in Scotland were not having family worship They said let's write something that will help them and one paragraph on Prayer it goes like this All those who can pray should do so, remembering that prayer is a gift from God to be used. And those who are young in the faith can well begin by using set outlines for prayer, like for example the Lord's Prayer.

However, they should not be content with that or use it as an excuse for spiritual sluggishness. Rather in their own private devotions they should frequently and earnestly ask God to enable them to pray. And so for your unregenerate children, you must call them to account before God. You must call them to account before God. And here's lesson number two.

I'm going to try to get through seven in the next 15 minutes. Lesson number two is you show them how to walk with you in the ways of the Lord. They. OK. You're not just saying just do as I say.

You're saying children walk with me and we'll do it together. Deuteronomy 6, I will not go through it right now, you study Deuteronomy 6 and see how you worship the Lord minute by minute by minute and how you can also bring reverence and obedience into your family. You can teach them the ways of the covenant, that they will be blessed. Godly fathers call their children to walk with them in the ways of the covenant. Now this is our guideline.

We don't just say, well walk with us, we're going to just go fishing, we're going to have fun, we're going to have a buddy-buddy relationship. They walk with us in the ways of the covenant. This is the point of Deuteronomy 6, you teach them the law and the ways of the covenant so that they can walk in it. Genesis 17 verse 1 is the story of Abraham how God called him. He said, Walk before me and be blameless.

I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. And Abraham fell on his face and God talked to them saying, behold my covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations. So this is how Abraham became the father of many nations. This is how your children will be able to go into the future and be very fruitful and multiply spiritually as well as physically. Genesis 18 verse 19, one of the best fatherhood verses in Scripture, for I have chosen him, says God about Abraham, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord." And this is the way of the covenant.

The way of the commandments that David prays about. To keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. And so you're teaching your children to do justice, to do righteousness, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. Another pointer, parents, do not exasperate your children. And don't think that, Oh, Mr.

Botkin, if I hold them to such a high account, they'll be exasperated. I'll turn them away from the Lord. No! They will never be turned away from the Lord when you hold them to a higher standard of holiness and righteousness. It's the Lord.

What exasperates children is when you say, children, there's the standard, but your parents don't have to walk in it. We're exempt. We're excused. You have to, but we don't. That exasperates them, frustrates them, and turns them away from the faith, because they see you do not believe it.

But if you hold yourself to that standard and you bring them up to it, they will never be exasperated in that. Command your children to read the Bible for themselves and to find commands to obey. Conference with them about what they... This is a word the Puritans used a lot. Conference with your children about what they read.

And we do this during family worship. I'll say to my sons, what did you read today? What did you read to my daughters? What did you read today? And we talk about it.

What did you learn today? Sometimes they say, Dad, well, I read something. I have no idea what it means. Can you help me? And we'll talk about that for a while.

Conference with them. This means confer with them. You need to have, and parents, this will give you such good relationships with your children if you conference with them about scripture and what they're reading. What they are reading. And yes, about what you're reading too, but about what they are reading.

If they're too young, when you're sitting around your family circle reading, train them to listen. I had to do... How Many of you have squirmy little boys who just can't pay attention for five seconds. Okay. Well, they can pay attention for four.

So use those four seconds. Okay. And this is what I would do with one of my sons. You know, I'd read four seconds worth of a verse and say, repeat this. You know, repeat after me.

And he'd do it. And then he could do five. And then he could do six. And then he could do seven. He was training himself to be able to learn and apprehend the Word of God and listen to the Word of God.

And have them repeat the scripture. Have them memorize the word. Mr. Botkin, even our unregenerate children? Yes!

Especially your unregenerate children. Memorize the Word of God. Victoria and I were speaking the other day about things that, as we're evaluating our lives and our parenting and one big regret that we have is that we didn't have them memorize more scripture. More scripture. When they were little, When they were little and their minds could really process and apprehend it.

Teach them the attitudes of reverence in Psalms. Read Psalms a lot to them. Show them how practical the law is by reading Proverbs to them when they're little. Psalms and Proverbs are so helpful to you, daddies, in teaching them the Word and the Law of God. Help them reveal their attitude so that you know the condition of their flock.

So help them reveal it when you're reading the Word to them. What does, children, what does that mean? And don't ask it this way. You know, What does that mean to you, Johnny? It's what does God Almighty mean by this?

So that they're learning to exegete Scripture, take the real meaning from it, not impart some meaning of their own into it, but to take the meaning from it. And you know, this is what helped my sons to become exegetes of Scripture so that they can actually teach the Word of God now and teach it responsibly and carefully. They began to explain Scripture even when they were young while their daddy could say, well that's... No, your hermeneutic is wrong. What I mean by that?

Your way of analyzing Scripture is not right in this case. And so they could learn with their family, with their father, about how to interpret Scripture. Interpret. And the more they talked about this, I could find their attitude. Is their attitude tender toward Scripture?

Are they trying to impart their own meaning to it so that they don't have to obey it? And this is what Christians have been doing in the United States now for many, many decades. Twisting Scripture because they wanted to say something that it doesn't say. And they've misinterpreted and misapplied scripture. Lesson number three, you need to teach your children, give an account for your children's souls.

They need to see you giving an account for your children's souls. I'll read this verse very quickly from Job chapter one verse five. Job's sons were grown, they were gone, they had their own households, they had feasting on a regular basis with one another and with their sisters. And when the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all. All seven.

And two daughters. And for Job said, perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did continually. Thus Job did continually. And you daddies, you need to continually to be doing these things for your children, consecrating them before the Lord.

They need to be hearing you pray for them and their souls. Can you imagine? Because he would call them all together. He's going to do these sacrifices. And he says, okay, son, son number two, this ram right here is for you and sins that you may have committed inadvertently.

Sharp knife to the throat, thrust it through and pull it out and blood spurts everywhere and the son is looking at this without the shedding of blood. There's no remission for sins. The son's learning, my daddy is concerned for my sin. He's concerned for my soul. And so your children will not know this until they hear you praying for their souls and giving account for their soul.

And when you sit down with them privately, and after you've spanked them for their infractions and say, I'm concerned for your soul. Do you see your hard heartedness? Do you see your inability to obey what you know is right? Do you see the condition of your soul and they hear you praying for them? Pray aloud for them and let them hear you in family worship.

Show them your hermeneutic as you read it and tremble before it. Now this I think is one of the most important contributions I made to my children's understanding. They just heard their daddy reading scripture and the attitude that I had to it. Taught them how to read and understand scripture. It's not dry and it's not academic.

And how I would embrace and love the verses. Lesson number four you need to teach your children. Identify the realities of false worship. You need to tell them that children, everybody is a worshiper. Joe Morcraft said this.

Everybody worships some ethical system of some God, either themselves that they've elevated to be a God, making up their own autonomous system. Autonomos means self-law. Theonomos is God's law. Say, children, all around us there are people worshiping other false gods in their homes. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua makes this point. He said, hey, there's plenty of gods for you to serve. You make up your minds. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Okay.

Lesson number five, make sure they know the chain of command and your own personal priorities in life. And so I just would say to my children, and they know this, children, I love you. I love mommy. But I have to love Jesus Christ more. And children, did you know that the Lord came to bring a sword in conflict?

Verse 35 of Matthew 10, I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies will be members of his own household. And I say, children, I don't want this to happen. But we have to. I will not sacrifice principles of scriptural obedience.

I must obey Christ first. He's my first love. And I have to call you to that. He who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And I say that to children.

I want you to love daddy and mommy, but I want you to love the Lord more. This is the chain of command. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. So we have to teach our children what it means to die daily, take up their cross and follow Christ. Lesson 6, take personal delight in God's command yourself.

Daddies, you've got to take personal delight in God's commands and your children need to see it. Psalm 112, 1, How blessed is the man who fears the Lord and greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants, His children will be mighty on the earth. The generation of the upright will be blessed. This is the verse I clung to and the Lord has proven Himself to be true.

I love His commandments. It has helped my children rise up and be bold in the face of evil and enemies. My little girls, when they wrote their first book, so much more. I told them before it was finished and released, children, you release this, little girls, you release this. You're going to have so many enemies.

People are going to hate you, people are going to criticize you. Even in the Christian community there will be Christian feminists who say nasty things about you and they were ready. And when it came, it didn't bother them. They counted themselves blessed to be persecuted. You need to be testing.

Now because this is true and your children will be mighty in the land, you start testing them young to be sure can they defend the faith? Can they defend their theology? Are they ready to stand in the gates and not be ashamed? Are they equipped? Have you equipped them?

And this is one thing when I'm praying to the Lord I say, wow, I just, There's so much I'm afraid I have not taught my children, especially my youngest sons. This is why right now I'm having them go through institutes in biblical law by rushtony. It's been required reading in our family, but I'm really trying to make sure my youngest sons, my older sons have got it. My younger sons don't. And I need to make sure that they do.

An application of the law of God to all of life. Lesson number seven. You remind them of their eternal importance and continually charge them to walk with God in obedience. Okay? They are important.

Children, you are eternal. Children, you have souls that will live forever. God created you for purposes. I give them this verse and we'll close on this one for tonight for today Ephesians 210 we are his workmanship children. You are his workmanship Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk in it children.

Are you ready? Are you walking? Can you walk with God? You are important to Him. Your souls are eternal.

And when they understand this and know this and know that they have duties and responsibilities of their own because they have been created for a purpose and that there have been good works created. Children you need to get ready to walk in these works. This is where we'll stop right now. I want to make sure that there are no serious unanswered questions. Do any of you have any big question about this as we close today?

I hope that I trust this is helpful to you. Man, do you see how simple this can be? You gather your children together and you calibrate your family to obedience and reverence. Short, keep it short, keep it simple, keep it sincere, and keep it real. Yes sir, you have one.

Okay, the question is, you know, when you travel a lot, if daddy's traveling a lot, what do you do? What do you have to do to make sure that things happen? Most daddies that I know who've been really good at this in Faithful will get their families around the telephone and do a conference call. You know, speaker phone and they'll spend time with them. The main thing that I recommend though is, daddies, try to cut down the travel.

Just try to cut it out if you can. Try to order your life. Try to be free, to get free so you can be with your family and work with your families. Try to get out of the corporate structure. Try to come home so that you can be working with your families.

Work on this. It's the duty, it's incumbent on Christian men to be free, to be completely free. So we are I'm afraid totally out of time but that's that's and what I also try to do is always take someone with me if I do have to travel but I have by God's grace been able to cut out almost all travel that does not involve my family. And so we're all here together. I'm staying in a little house right off campus here.

And it's wonderful to get to be together and travel together, work together, labor together, minister together. And this is my prayer for you all. So I want to thank you, God bless you all. There's another lecture coming up right after this about music and what 20th century music has done to the Protestant Church in America. God Bless you all and thank you.

For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the Word of God, and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org.