We began our time together speaking about the most important principle of all of life, and that is that we would somehow become a people who love the patterns of Scripture. There is a way that one should conduct himself in the household of God. There is a way to build a family. God has revealed it. The patterns are from heaven.
They are wonderful. Nothing that the world offers can do any better than those. And so our hope was to incite any affection toward the patterns of God, to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your strength, not to take them lightly at all, but to take them heavily. Let me give you an illustration of that. We happen to live in a world where we have just so gotten used to taking the Word of God lightly in so many areas.
And one illustration that I hope will help to locate what this problem is, is this one. If you look from the beginning to the end of scripture on what God says about children and fertility, you get one single message. It's not contradicted. It's not qualified in any way. Be fruitful and multiply, God says to Adam.
After the flood, be fruitful and multiply, God says to Noah. And this message is all throughout scripture. God desires godly seed. God desires to see millions like the stars of the sea, stars of the sky and the sand of the sea shore. God desires fruitfulness and multiplication.
He said to Moses, tell the people of Israel, multiply greatly, not multiply as you've determined in your heart, as you think is wise. Scripture is so clear about this issue of fertility. And yet why is it that in evangelicalism, if you talk to people about being fruitful and multiply, instead of gloating in those words, instead of saying, oh, Lord, help me to fulfill those, they say, well, God has given me a brain. God has given me planning abilities. We have particular needs and issues in our family.
We need to chart our course and work this out on our own. Why is it that we do that? The reason we do that, and the reason we accept that mentality in Evangelicalism, is all of us, our greatest problem is that we take lightly the Word of God. Instead of taking it heavily, instead of taking it with all of our hearts, we set aside the commandments of God for the sake of our tradition. That's what we do.
This is our human nature. And if we're able to succeed in one area, we know that we'll fall short at another area. That's the way we are. And so all of us, let's say we get the fertility part right. Then there's something over here as well.
Fixing that doesn't fix the whole problem, because it doesn't fix the human heart. The problem is in the heart. And so God desires our hearts to be turned toward Him with all of what energy is there. And so that we would take the commandments of God heavily, not lightly, that we wouldn't set them aside, but they would loom up and we'd say, Oh Lord, I embrace these. Oh how I love Thy law.
It is my meditation all the day. Oh Lord, help me to keep Your commandments. Help me to walk in Your ways. That is the heart that we have desired to somehow incite in each of us and in ourselves as well as all of us desperately fall short of the glory of God in every way. And why is this?
It's for the glory of God. We believe that the principles of family life have been suppressed. That man has suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. And the wrath of God is upon the church as a result of that suppression. The wrath of God is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
And so it is for us, we the church, to come around all of what God has said and praise Him for it. And then even though the world would censure us for it, even though we might be excommunicated from our families, or maybe even from our churches, God forbid. But if we would be excommunicated from the broader culture, then let God be proved true and man be proved a liar. And that's what God has called us to do. And we have just so desired to encourage a heart of obedience toward the Word of God regarding family life.
We desire to see a church reformed by holy Scripture. We desire to see a church bathed in the Word of God through biblical preaching, fearless biblical preaching, week after week, that the preaching of the Word would go on every day of the week when fathers sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. That the Word of God would spread, the glory of God would be seen everywhere. That children and parents and grandparents would be so full of the glory of God because of their affection for it. That wherever they go, it would be like a light walking wherever they might walk.
And that their households are places of hospitality. They are the gates of heaven, where the Kingdom of Heaven rules and reigns, where the head of the household, the prophet, and the priest and the king is there. He is legislating, he is loving, he is caring, he is nurturing according to all the particular issues that are rising in that family. He is doing the business of the kingdom of God. He is obeying the command of Jesus Christ, do business until I come.
And that God would fill the churches with a similar faithfulness. That there would be a resurgence of theological bedrock in the church. That we would preach the whole counsel of God, not just a verse here and a verse there and that over there, but the whole counsel of God, that we might understand the will of God, so that when things come to us, we can keep our wits about us, and move in holiness and in the joy of the Lord. We desire that the Word of God be let loose. We know that the Word of God is not chained.
And therefore we know that as long as we use it with all of our hearts, then there will be freedom in this world. And God is doing a mighty work in our land on a number of different fronts. This front that we've been talking about is just one of those fronts that God is moving mightily in. And I'm so grateful that He is moving, that He's not leaving His church just the same. Do you think God wants to leave His church the same as it is today?
Absolutely not. Do you think that the church down the street is okay if it's the same this decade as it was the last? Absolutely not. Somehow this idea has crept in to our minds that we become Christians, and we don't change. And if you change, then you're censured.
No! God has called us to change, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and that we would no longer present ourselves to the bankrupt propositions and activities of this world. No, God wants us to change. He wants me to change. He wants to transform my family and your family, and your church and my church.
He doesn't want our churches the same one decade after the next. Not at all. He wants us to be moving to the upward call of God. Now, there are three things that I just want to leave you with in this whole realm of theological activity. And these three things I think are just so important for us.
First of all, we need to understand that God has appointed us for a time where courage is required. If the church would change, then The people in the church would have to have courage. They would have to be willing to suffer the censure of this world by obeying and exalting the things that God has said so plainly in scripture. They should be resolute. They should continue to communicate it and not flag, to understand that the favor of God is the only thing that matters.
It's the only thing that matters. And that doesn't mean that we stop loving people, it means that we love them more. But it means that we have courage in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. We need to have the same heart that was infused in the people in the second chapter of Acts when the Apostle Peter preached and he said, be saved from this perverse generation. He meant you have to stop doing what this perverse generation is doing.
Be saved from it. And that's what we need to be doing here in this perverse generation. Do we think that that was the only perverse generation? No. There's much to be saved from.
There's much to change. There's much to migrate toward. So courage. I just, I desire that God would raise up a church full of courage, energized by this great foundation of Holy Scripture that will never pass away. Man's ways will pass away.
The fads will pass away. But what we find here in Holy Scripture will never pass away. And so we should have courage. And secondly, that we should understand that in the midst of whatever conflicts God brings to us, that there is joy in keeping His commandments. His word is the source of all joy.
There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God. And this is just the quality of the kingdom of God. It's the kingdom of joy. It's righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. So I just want to appeal to the joy of the Lord in all of this, that God is faithful And even though courage might be necessary, what is also necessary is the joy of the Lord.
The prophet said, you shall go out with joy, you shall be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth with shouts of joy before you. And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. And we need to understand that when a saint in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is courageous that that great cloud of witnesses the angels in heaven are rejoicing at the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ being expressed and then perseverance I would just like to encourage us to understand how important perseverance is in a time like this. Whenever there's a time of reformation, perseverance is necessary.
God is the final judge. It's to us, though, to persevere and to continue in the work that God has called us to. And that in this perseverance we should understand that God is finally in control of all of the outcomes. God is building His kingdom. He has promised to take us into His heavenly city.
He has promised to glorify Himself throughout all the earth. God has already promised that He would sum up everything in Christ. And So this is why we should persevere, because we know that God will accomplish everything that He wishes to accomplish. And in the meantime, He for some reason would use people like us. Isn't that amazing that He would?
But it's again one of those incomprehensible things in life, divine sovereignty and human activity. How about divine sovereignty and then His use of poor, wretched sinners as his instruments. But this is what his plan is all about, that he would use us. Use us, we who have imperfect families. Use us, we who have had imperfect theological training.
Using us, we who have imperfect hearts, who have particular idols that need to be smashed over time. And yet God is so gracious with us that He doesn't destroy us because of our idols. But He takes us one year at a time, one decade at a time, sanctifying us and cleansing us by the washing of the water of His Word. This is the kindness of God and it's because of that kindness we should just continue to persevere. Let's not despise the day of small things.
God is doing something remarkable that He's never done in the history of this nation. Do you understand that? Do you understand what's happening in the church right now? It has not happened for probably a hundred and fifty years. There's a generation of young ladies in the church today that the church has not seen in 100 years.
I know these ladies, some of you are here. It's absolutely mind boggling to me to see the maturity, the love, the steadiness, the lack of silliness, the power, the wisdom of this generation of young ladies. What is God doing? Same thing with the young men. There's a generation of young men that this nation has not seen in a hundred years either.
I'll never forget, I'll never forget, I went to a conference a few years ago and I was meeting all these young men and I couldn't believe it. I called up my wife, I said, Deborah, I have never met so many 14 year olds with business cards in all my life what is happening what's going on what's going on is God is reviving His church and He's using simple families like yours and mine as a result of it. And in times like these, we should just continue to keep our hand on the plow day after day. And God will bless the work. God will see to it that you do not live in vain, but let's give our hearts wholly unto God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our strength, and let's not take lightly the commandments of God toward anything.
Oh Lord, we indeed are a needy people and yet we understand your great plan that is so wonderful that you would include us in it and take us to heaven. We are so grateful. Oh Lord, I pray that you would fill us up with the knowledge of your will, that we would glorify Jesus Christ, that we would obey holy scripture and find more joy in it than all the spoils of this world and that you would give us faithfulness and love for our brothers. Give us patience. Oh Lord, keep our tongues from evil in the midst of this.
I pray that you would banish gossip from us. I pray that you would banish hardheartedness toward any of our brothers and sisters in the church, but that we would faithfully take the time to read Holy Scripture together and then ask for help that we might glorify you in this generation. Amen. 1