Dear fathers and mothers, God would be honored, happiness would spread, the glory of God would increase, As you find yourselves dedicated to sing the power of God to save. I'll sing thy power to save. I will sing thy power to save. This is the role of a father and a mother. You have given to your children a poison that will send them to hell.
It's in them. You gave it to them. You passed it on from Adam. And now God Almighty has raised you up for such a time as this, to sing the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to save. Every day, as you sit in your house, as you walk by the way, as you lie down and you rise up, There is a reformation that is so critical that we all accomplish here, that we take it to heart and we begin right in our homes where we can do it.
There's no objection, there's no obstacle to this reformation in your home. Your church might not be exactly what you think it ought to be and it never will be exactly what it ought to be. But this I do know. This very day you can sing the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to save. The goal of our instruction here has been love.
For love from a pure heart communicated every day in the homes of the people that come here, we desire a proclamation of the gospel as beautiful and passionate and consistent and loving as we can possibly imagine. We desire a mighty reformation of family life and church life. Family life is the fountain of the church. And so we so desire a mighty reformation. We desire a reformation of practices.
We desire a reformation of hearts in this generation. Could it be possible that in these darkest days of American history, morally and for the progress of the Gospel and in so many ways that there would be fathers and mothers who would rise up and they would sing the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to save so beautifully, so consistently in their homes daily, singing, praying, loving, pouring out this fountain of grace out into the church and out into the culture. This is our call. It's a call for reformation. We're standing up and saying, there must be a reformation in our days.
We're urging a reformation. We're urging for mighty changes. We are urging for earthquakes in the churches and in the homes to take place, earthquakes that would shake, shake up and break up the bad practices that are there that have harmed the progress of the gospel, that have stopped the singing of the power to save in the homes and then in the churches. This is our great appeal. There have been times of reformation like this.
We could speak about the reformation that took place in John Calvin's Geneva, where amazing things happened there. A church was reformed through a return to the Scriptures. There was expository preaching. Theological bedrock was laid as Calvin wrote the Institutes. A Bible was translated in two years that shook Europe.
Leaders were sent around the world. John Calvin said to Martin Bueser, send us your wood and we will send you arrows. May the churches be like this, may our homes be like this. The Bible was applied to all areas of life. On Thursdays at the consistory they held court and dealt with every imaginable family and civil government and church problem you can imagine.
They took Holy Scripture and applied it to the things that were happening. They sought carefully out the phrases and the words of Scripture that would inform them about what to do about every problem in life. They didn't look at the Bible as some interesting reference point separated from life, but that it informed every area of life, that every word of Scripture would rise up and be like a beacon of light into every problem that was there. And this Protestant Reformation reached far beyond the doctrine of justification alone. It opened up the discussion of biblical truth for every area of life, and it reformed the family, and it reformed the church, and it reformed the civil government.
This Reformation had a marvelous effect in the next generation of Reformers. The Reformers laid a theological bedrock, and then the Puritans came and stood upon their shoulders. And there was a family reformation in the Puritan era, like the world, I don't believe, has ever seen. This is why you have people like J.I. Packer saying that the Puritans were the godliest generation since the New Testament church in the book of Acts.
They took the Bible and applied it to every area of life. And outflowing from this application was a description of beautiful family life. It was a family reformation in the Puritan era. And you had Matthew Henry and Philip Dodridge and Richard Baxter and Increase Mather and Jonathan Edwards, who preached the biblical doctrine of the family. I believe that we need to recover the biblical doctrine of the family in our generation.
They recovered in the Puritan era. They stood on the shoulders high on the shoulders of the Reformers and then something happened. The next generation fell off, and the whole thing went tumbling into the ground. And now we need to recover that doctrine. It was Bible doctrine that we need to recover.
I believe we need to go back to the Puritans and learn what they learned and stand on their shoulders again. And that's what this conference really is all about. It's to stand on the shoulders of those who went before us for a mighty reformation, But for what? To sing thy power to save? To praise the Lord Jesus Christ in the households every day until He comes again?
Until our breath ceases in this life? Renewing the family always must begin with Holy Scripture. A third Reformation is needed today. We had the Reformation of the Reformers. We had the family Reformation in the Puritan era.
And now, here we are in the 21st century, and there is a great need that so many of us are giving every drop of our energy to promote, honestly. A term was coined in the Puritan era, family religion. This term appeared and it became the catch phrase for the biblical doctrine of the family. The seriousness of the role of the Father in home life was considered. The Father is the head of the household.
Family worship was promoted. There were tremendous reformations in all these areas. Philip Godwin's book on family religion, the first book where this term was coined, he says this, family religion revived or a treatise as to discover the good old way of serving God in private houses so as to recover the pious practice of those precious duties unto their primitive platform." In other words, go back to Holy Scripture and find the biblical doctrine of family life. Here's what he says. I love these words.
I love these words because in each, almost each phrase, you find the heart of the biblical doctrine of the family. Look well unto thy herd, he says. Or as the Hebrew, put thy heart into thy herd. A man's herd should even lap in his heart, and his heart should be laid out upon his herd. A man's family, though they be, may sometimes out of the house, yet they should be at no time out of his heart, nor his heart out of them, but ever studiously striving, and always solicitously set to do the good.
The good, the eternal good of their immortal souls should ever be upon His heart, and His heart there upon in daily diligence. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flock, and look well to thy herd." Those of you who have read your Bibles know that almost every phrase is an image out of Holy Scripture regarding family life. He said, a man ought to have all of his house so as to know their faces, as to understand their cases, Conditions, dispositions, capacities, necessities, iniquities, a good expositor reads it. Take thou exact knowledge of all thy under thy charge so as to correct and amend whatever amongst them thou findest in this. This was the Puritan understanding of the family.
Why did he write this? He wrote this because these principles are all found in Holy Scripture. Matthew Henry, one of the great Puritans, wrote a sermon called A Church in the House, a sermon concerning family religion. I was in a friend's house about a year and a half ago, and he handed me an ancient copy of this sermon, and I read it, and I was just lost for hours. In this sermon that was preached in 1704 and was never republished again as far as I know, was hanging in at the biblical doctrine of the family and an exposition of what fathers should do.
Here's what it looked like when I read it. This is a photocopy. We have these for sale back there. They're just photocopies of them. And then we… I've just recently republished this sermon in the form of this book.
In this book is such treasure from the Puritans who understood the biblical doctrine of the family. My son laid this book out. Erica Daming, one of the young women in our church, typed the manuscript and We worked with it for probably a couple of hundred hours to get it so it was readable to 21st century readers. But a church in the house. Here Matthew Henry argues that every house should be as a little church.
Not replacing the church, But every house should be as it were unto the gates of heaven. He said this, urging fathers to mightily rise up, to bring the gospel, to sing His power to save. He said, Why did you give them a Christian name if you will not give them the knowledge of Christ and Christianity? God has owned them as His children, born unto Him, and therefore He expects they should be brought up for Him. You are unjust to your God, unkind to your children, and unfaithful to your trust.
If having by baptism entered your children into Christ's school and lifted them under his banner, you do not make conscience of training them up in the learning of Christ's scholars and under the discipline of his soldiers. He says here, if you do not conduct family worship, fathers, you're unkind, you're unjust to your God, you're unfaithful to your trust. Why did you give them a Christian name if you would not give them a Christian upbringing? We really so desire an uprising of men to take on this mantle of shepherding. He said, thirdly, let those that are remiss and negligent in their family worship be awakened to more zeal and constancy.
We want to do that here. I would just like to take these words and channel them right to you. Take more zeal and constancy in this role. He continues, some of you perhaps have a church in your house, but it is not a flourishing church. It is like the church of Laodicea, neither cold nor hot, or like the church of Sardis, in which the things that remain are ready to die so that it has little more than a name.
Is it possible that your family is in this condition? Well God has placed you over that family. You're the caretaker. You're the shepherd. You're the one that can sing thy power to save.
You're the one that can open up Holy Scripture and revive that family through holy words. He says, I beseech you, sirs, make a business of your family religion, not a by business. Let it be your pleasure and delight, and not a task in drudgery. Contrive your affairs so as that the most convenient time may be allotted, both morning and evening, for your family worship, so as that you might not be as unfit for it or disturbed or straightened by it You know, most people don't know where Matthew Henry's commentary set came from Do you know the source of this commentary set Matthew Henry grew up in the household of his father, Philip. His father, Philip, conducted family worship twice a day, without fail, except in extreme conditions.
When Matthew Henry was a little boy and grew up, he left his household with a commentary of the Bible written in his own hand from notes from his father and then he did the same thing with his Other his other children. I think he had seven daughters and one son or something like that and he he did the same thing day after day Expositing family Holy Scripture to his family and his children also had notes of a commentary of the Bible written in their hand when they left his household. When Matthew Henry died, his commentary set was put together by his preaching, his own personal notes, and the notes of his dear daughters who took them in his house day after day. Matthew Henry was a family shepherd, and he was expositing Scripture with all of his heart. This treasure, this treasure of his commentary set is with us today because of this practice of family worship, where he exposited Scripture.
I believe that in this generation we need Expositors in the homes. We know we don't just need expositors in the pulpits We need that but we need expositors in the homes as well who will take holy scripture Who knows what might happen if you did that? Charles Spurgeon said that every person should read Matthew Henry's commentary, cover to cover. If you're a believer, you should read it. George Whitefield read it three times the last time he read it on his knees.
This commentary set that came out of simple, simple family worship, the practices explained through his very fruitful life. Regarding houses that do not pray, I just want you to get the sternness of this. I want you to get a sense of urgency for Matthew Henry that maybe you could never get for me or anyone else that's been on this platform. You are shameless if you do not conjunctly praise him for his bounty. Such a house is rather a stife or swine than a dwelling house for rational creatures." Now, if one of us stood up here and said that your household is nothing but a stye for swine because you do not conduct family worship.
How far do you think that would get us? But let me tell you, this is, I believe, a stern warning for all of us. The Puritans understood the biblical doctrine of the family and they communicated it quite clearly and were very careful and precise in it. Philip Dodridge was another one. Philip Dodridge was a contemporary of Matthew Henry, and on that same day that I was in my friend's house, I read another sermon, a plain and serious address to the master of a family on the subject of family religion by Philip Dodridge.
Philip Dodridge was just like Matthew Henry. I found a commentary set that Philip Dodridge wrote. It's six volumes, it's this much, and it's called The Family Expositor. He wrote it out of the richness of his own exposition in his household, and he wrote it for families to use in their exposition of Scripture. Here's what Philip Dodridge says, that they think that they will think themselves authorized by your example to a like negligence and so that you may entail heathenism under disregarded Christian forms on your descendants and their ages to come.
He is saying this negligence is nothing but heathenism in the family. He said, on the whole, God only knows what a church may arise from one godly family. What a harvest may spring up from a single seed. And on the other hand, it is impossible to say how many souls may at length perish by the treacherous neglect of a single person and to speak plainly by your own. Who knows what can happen?
You know, I was with a man today and he said, what can I do for God? And the man that was with me said, disciple your family. When you disciple a son or a daughter, you are discipling millions of future generations. Do a good job there. Make it your business, not your by-business.
Make it your passion to disciple those under your care. You are a shepherd, you fathers. Disciple your families. He said, how many hours in a week do you find for amusement while you have none for devotion to your family? You think the amusement problem is new?
Absolutely not. It's a problem of human nature. We take the base things and love them and reject the gold and the silver. Richard Baxter, of how great importance the wise and holy education of children is to the saving of their souls and the comfort of their parents and the good of the church and the state and the happiness of the world. And how great a calamity is when the world is fallen into through the neglect of that duty.
No heart can conceive but that they think what a cause the heathen, infidel, and ungodly nations are in, and how rare true piety is grown, and how many millions must lie in hell forever. Well, not so much of this inhuman negligence as to abhor it." He calls it your neglecting family worship. Richard Baxter calls it a great calamity. Your neglecting family worship, he calls it an inhuman negligence. George Whitefield, to what greater degree of apostasy must he have arrived who takes no thought to provide for the spiritual welfare of his family?
The Puritans believe that that scripture that says if a man doesn't provide for his own house, he's worse than an infidel. The Puritans believe that that meant spiritual and physical provision. They said if it means physical provision, it must obviously also have a double meaning. Well, he says that it is apostasy if a man would neglect the spiritual welfare of his family. He said again, But not every governor of a family be in a lower degree liable to the same censure, who takes no thought of those souls that are committed to his charge?
For every house is, as it were, a little parish, and every governor, as it was observed before, a priest, every family a flock, and if any of them perish through the governor's neglect their blood God will require at their hands. Now notice again the amazing language describing the problems of those who do not engage in family worship. Those governors that neglected are certainly without excuse, and it is much to be feared. If they live without family prayer, they live without God in the world." Have you neglected family prayer? Whitefield says, if you've neglected family prayer, your children are living without God in the world.
He said, shall I term such families Christians or heathens doubtless if they deserve not the name of Christians? Now, the Puritans believed that if you were not, as a father, conducting family worship, you were acting like a heathen. Richard Baxter would conduct Church discipline on those who neglected family worship and family catechizing. And he worked very hard to see that in his district that it was happening. The fruitfulness of family government that the Bible explains is very clear.
Here's Thomas Manton. A family is the seminary of the church and state, and if children are not well principled there, all miscarryeth. Here we find this principle, that the family is the fountain, It's the seminary of the church and the state. He further said, if youth be ill-bred in the family, they prove ill in the church and the commonwealth, there is the first making or marring and the presage of their future lives to be thence taken. William Gouge, another Puritan.
It is impossible that a minister who it may be hath many hundred children under his charge should well instruct them. It is therefore requisite that each parent Look to his own children. He says this to say you shepherds of churches Really have no hope unless your family your father is your family shepherd shepherd those those little flocks that are there It's it's It's impossible to shepherd the church unless the shepherds take on their responsibility. Baxter, get masters of families to do their duty, and they will not only spare you a great deal of labor, but will much further the success of your labors. If a captain can get the officers under him to do their duty, he may rule the soldiers with much less trouble than if all lay upon his own shoulders.
If we suffer to neglect this, we shall undo all. The Puritans believed that if you neglected family shepherding, you would undo everything. I believe they're right. Jonathan Edwards. It's interesting to read this statement from Jonathan Edwards because you can see that he was a student of Matthew Henry.
He just quotes, without referencing Matthew Henry in this book, A Church in the House. Every Christian family ought as it be, as it were, a little church consecrated to Christ and wholly influenced and governed by His rules. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove ineffectual. If these are unduly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to be successful. This biblical doctrine of the family continued on.
Edwards understood it, but after Edwards it began to die away. Edwards and his predecessors stood on the shoulders of the Reformers, and then liberalism, Unitarianism, and also a church-destroying educational system Began to rise and we lost the biblical doctrine of the family. That's my view of history Practical details of the Puritan worship morning and evening, that was their practice, that was their encouragement. Scripture reading, prayer, singing, very simple. It doesn't take a lot of instruction and mentoring, it just takes a desire in the heart to sing the praises of Almighty God every day.
A third Reformation is needed today. We need to climb back up the ladder of the Reformers and keep climbing and get back on the shoulders of the Puritans. We need to recover what they knew, and then we need to build upon it. And then we need to put our own sons and daughters on our shoulders and go the next length, and their sons and daughters on their shoulders, and go the next length, and not watch the Word of God be defiled in a generation. We have a responsibility now.
We know too much right now. We know more than our fathers knew about the biblical doctrine of the family. Right now in this room we do. We have been given a trust to whom much is given, much is required. And I believe that it is required of family shepherds in this generation to get back up on the shoulders of the Puritans and carry on the work.
Would you do that, fathers? Would you make your houses as little churches? Would they be like unto the gates of heaven? Would they be the source of happiness in the church? Would they be the source of responsibility and industry in the community?
Would they be lighthouses shining the beauty and the glory of the Gospel? Or industry and honor and loving kindness and the goal of all of God's instruction, love, would be carried out. You know, we've just spent many, many hours listening to exposition, to preaching, to trying to define the biblical doctrine of the family. Our heads are fat, but what about our hearts? Are our hearts full as well?
Is there enough heat in these hearts to carry us on? Well, the Spirit of God is able. Only God is able to fill the heart of a man with love and joy in the glory of God so that he can't stop himself, but to gather his little flock around him every day and say, you precious flock, oh how I love you like your Father loves you. Oh, how I desire to gather you into my arms and sing to you and speak to you and preach to you and explain to you and pray for you and help you and walk beside you in the wonderful things of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all things, this is what we desire that would be the result of this conference, that there would be before the throne of God millions of worshipers from every generation from every tongue and tribe and nation eternally praising God saying holy holy holy Lord God Almighty this is our desire but the glory of God would fill the earth.
But how does that happen? It happens very practically when you get up in the morning, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. That is how it happens. And this is our great appeal. You may not be able to fix your church.
Well, I'm confident you can't fix your church. Only the Lord Jesus Christ is able to fix His church. But here's one thing that He has done. He has given you fathers 100% authority to move and take dominion of this little flock that you have. And it's a godly dominion, it's a sweet dominion.
It's the kind of dominion that everyone really desires. That you would display the glory of the gospel, that you would express the headship that God has given you, that you would bring unity to your family and your church, that you would establish the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in all things, That you would bring your children up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. That your family would have one single purpose for the evangelization of the nations and the blessing of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. That all education would be under the government of God, that all industry would be for the glory of God, that all the families in the earth would be blessed. We began this conference in the same place that we end it.
Speaking of worshippers before the throne of God, as many as the stars are in the heavens, as many as the sand is in the seashore, this is the great divine purpose of our families and all that we have spoken of here. Let it be banished from us that we would adore the family more than the Lord Jesus Christ. If we would, then we would be family idolaters. But if we would not, then we would sing His power to save from one generation to the next, that there would be millions of mouths on this earth to praise Almighty God in every tongue and tribe and nation so that there would be even more millions before his throne forever and I trust that that is enough for us in this life. Would you pray with me?
O Lord, I pray that you would give us love in our hearts for all these things. That it would be for the happiness of every member of our family, that shepherding would be like the Lord Jesus Christ, that fatherhood would be like yours, oh Lord, in your throne in heaven, and that all the communication would be as sweet as the communication of the Holy Spirit, and all of his comforts would remain with us in this life and we would be satisfied in those alone. In Jesus' name, Amen.