SPEAKER_00 0:02

Again, very thankful to be with y'all this morning. And we uh last Sunday preached a message on why are we here? Why do we exist? What is the purpose of man in this world? And this Sunday I want to, if my message had a title, it would be The Purpose of the Scriptures. The purpose of the Scriptures. So why do we have the Scriptures? Why do we have the Bible? Well, I believe this goes hand in hand with what we preached on last Sunday is that if our purpose here in this world is to glorify God, honor Him, delight in Him, then how do you and I go about doing that? Well, I want to lay a foundation and a groundwork, and then we're gonna dive into the scriptures. I want to first turn your attention to Hebrews. We're gonna get a couple verses of scripture there, and then we're gonna turn and just dive into this. So in Hebrews chapter 8, we read how it is that a person is born again. In Hebrews chapter 8, we're gonna begin reading in verse 10. Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 10. So Paul writes to the Hebrews and he says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. Well, this is referring to God's sovereign operation when he burns again a person, when God does a transforming work in the life of a person and convicts them of sin when he again writes his laws and their heart and their mind. And we understand that this operation is not something that man does to himself. This is something that God does. We don't do this. A minister can't do this, a parent can't do this, the individual person can't do this. God says, again, look at what it says there. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. He says, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. And I will be unto them a God, and they shall be unto me a people. Now, so again, that is referring to the sovereign operation of God and burning a person again by the operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby he convicts a person of sin and enlightens their mind to see the things of the Lord, and the Lord is writing. That's when he literally gives us a regenerate conscience, a conscience where before things didn't bother us, where before you know we weren't bothered by our own sin, but now it does bother us, and we hate it, and we want to forsake it, and God is the one who did that in us. Well, but then he goes on to say in the next verse, and he tells them, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shadow me from the least to the greatest. In other words, do y'all know that I have been in the minist, I just thought about this. I have been in the ministry now for 30 years. I surrendered to the ministry when I was 18 years old, and I'm 48. So I have been actively attempting to follow the Lord in ministry for 30 years, three decades. And do y'all know I have never saved a single individual to heaven? Not one. Did y'all know that Billy Graham never saved a single individual to heaven? Do y'all know the Apostle Paul never saved a single individual to heaven? Now, the Apostle Paul or these other men or many other ministers throughout the ages, have they instructed men in the word of the Lord and women and children to more diligently follow after God and be obedient to God and maybe even timely here on earth, save some from their waywardness to get back on the right track? Absolutely, absolutely. But no man save the Lord Jesus Christ has ever saved a single human being to heaven. That is a sovereign operation of God. That is God's doing. As it says here, the Lord says, I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them of God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. In other words, I don't have the ability to teach a child or a man, neither did the apostle Paul or Moses for that matter, who wrote the law. A man cannot teach another man to know God in a saving way, an eternal way. I can only teach other men and women and children to know about God, to know about his word and how we're to follow him here on this earth. But I can't give another person the saving knowledge of God. Only God can do that and write that on the tablet. Well, you know, think about this. How did God deliver the law to Moses? He sovereignly wrote the law on tables of stone in the Old Testament, right? By the finger of God. How does the law of God get put in man? God sovereignly writes the law of God on the tablet of a man's heart by the sovereign operation and the burning again of the Holy Spirit. Amen? Man doesn't do that. Preachers don't do that, parents don't do that. They're unable to do the work of saving, of salvation, as it were. Men don't do that. Men only teach other men to know about God. We can't teach men to know God. So I want to make that clear. Well, now, I mentioned that the title of my sermon today was the purpose of the scriptures. The purpose of the scriptures. We mentioned last Sunday that our message was all about what is the purpose of the existence of man? Why does man exist? Man exists to glorify and honor God and to enjoy Him. That is the purpose of man. Well, the Scriptures exist in conjunction with that. So if you go out there in our waiting room, you'll see that we have the minutes of our church and our articles of faith. And our second article of faith is this. We believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the revealed word of God and the only rule of faith and practice. Now, that may seem to be a simple statement, and it is, it is, but it is a very weighty statement. So let me give you a few implications of that. Why are y'all here today? I mean, think about that, really. You are not here to hear me. Well, first and foremost, the Bible also says in the book of Hebrews, uh, chapter 10, it says uh Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 23. Hebrews 10 and 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching. In the Old Testament, in Exodus chapter 20, uh, the fourth commandment is remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. So again, I ask you the question, why are you here today? You are not here to hear, I hope you were not here to hear specifically Brother Josh King. Because I am a man, a human being like you are, a sinful individual, who is hopefully like you are, attempting to serve and follow the Lord. But you are here for the word of God. Amen. You are here to hear the scriptures read and hopefully expounded. You are here to hear a man surrender himself and get out of the way, to attempt to preach upon, uh hopefully to humble himself and get out of the way and be led of the Holy Spirit to preach and rightly divide the word of God. You are here today to hear the scriptures. Amen. The word of God. Well, Brother Joshua, I thought you had already expounded that you can't teach any man to know the Lord. That's right. I can't teach you how to know God in an eternal way. But I can teach you more about God. I have, in the book of Ephesians, it talks about that the purpose of the ministry is to equip the saints for service. My job is like a quartermaster in the army. A quartermaster in the army is the place where the men go to get their equipment. In other words, I didn't put you in the army, I didn't make you a soldier. I am just the guy handing out water canteens and rifles and backpacks, and I'm just here to equip the saints for service. In other words, the Lord has already put you in his army, he's already adopted you to be his child, and I am here to help equip the saints for service. Now, where are you going with all this? Our second article of faith literally says, we believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the revealed Word of God. So again, I ask you that question. Why are you here today? I believe that you're here today because you believe that the Bible, the Word of God, is true. Amen. Can I is that right? And you believe that it is important that you remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, that you not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. So you and your family are in a habit of coming to the church house Sunday after Sunday because you want to attempt to be obedient to the word of God and to God Himself. You are trying to honor the Lord and amen and praise the Lord, that's what you and I are both supposed to do. I'm thankful for that. But if we believe that the scriptures are of the Old and New Testament, are the revealed word of God. This is the actual writings of the creator of the universe and how he has communicated to us, you know, uh his worldview, his mind, what he's done in this world? And the Bible also says, and they are the only rule of faith and practice. Why is that important? That is important, brothers and sisters, because you and I live in a world today that doesn't care. Well, Brother Josh, if the scriptures are our only rule of faith and practice, did y'all know that that means that men and women are supposed to be married before they live together? Do y'all know that that means that we are supposed to go to church every Sunday? We are supposed to read our Bible, we're supposed to love our fellow man, that abortion is murder. And again, I'm not going to go into all that. Y'all know that. My point is, brothers and sisters, is that you and I don't get to make up the rules, right? Amen? That the rules are set here of the Lord. Now, but but it's more than that. Yeah, Brother Josh, you Christians like to talk about the rule book, that y'all are sticklers about the rule and y'all don't ever obey them perfectly. I'm guilty of that, aren't you? Is there anybody here who's a sinless man or woman? No, we're not. Every one of us has sinned except the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the world wants to be real quick to point out that how we don't 100% perfectly obey the law. But there is a difference because you and I are attempting to obey the law. We're trying to follow the Lord. Not to go to heaven because we can't do that. God's already done that by his sovereign grace in our lives. We're attempting to follow the Lord because that's what we're supposed to do to honor Him. Because why do you and I exist? To glorify and honor God, right? That is our purpose of being here. And this book tells us how to go about doing that. So when a young person is confused or when an old person is confused, well, should I live with my boyfriend or not live with my boyfriend? The Bible tells us, no, you should not do that. Instead, you should be married. Should I cheat on my taxes or not cheat on my taxes? No, I shouldn't do that. Well, you know the government, they take so much from us already. Render unto Caesar. What is Caesar's? The Bible tells us what we're supposed to do to honor God. By the way, it goes way more than that. In other words, it's not just some legalistic rule book that you and I get the heebie-jeebies about. I just don't like people telling me what do broke Josh all the time. Well, you know, Jesus said that the scriptures taught of him. In other words, the Bible is not just a rule book about do's and don'ts. It's way more than that. It's actually telling us about our eternal Savior. It's telling us about our Redeemer. It's telling us about the finished work of Jesus Christ, the gospel, the good news. It tells us about grace and mercy and forgiveness that you and I don't deserve and cannot earn. Well, now that you've spent 20 minutes talking about all that, where are you going with all this? If our purpose is to glorify God, the Scripture's purpose is to tell us how, after that has happened, our being born again, how we go about doing that. If I've ever heard one. Anybody here know what the definition of catechism is? That's a church word. Let me define that. The definition of the word catechism is a form of instruction by means of questions and answers, particularly in the principles of religion. The word catechism or to catechize. That's a very old word. But it literally just means oral instruction or to teach by the mouth. You could say that preaching is a form of catechism. To instruct or teach by the mouth. Did you know that preachers aren't the only ones that are supposed to orally teach? I actually want to give y'all very quickly today a uh the Bible exhorts Christians, parents, and ministers, to Kedeki, to teach by the instruction of their mouth. That so let's dive into this. If y'all will, turn me to turn with me to Proverbs chapter 22. Proverbs chapter 22. And we're just going to dive into this. If you and I believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the revealed word of God and the only rule of faith and practice, then what do you and I do with that? I want to give you one more illustration and then we're going to dive into this. Y'all, let's step back in time and let's think about the children of a baker. A baker. So let's step back into Bible times and let's think about the person in the community who would be the baker. And let's say that he had a few children, maybe two, maybe three, boy and a girl. They were young, five, six, seven, eight, ten, maybe one of them is a teenager. And this man is a baker. And so back in those times, it was very common that people would teach their trade to their family members, their children, that the whole family, husband, wife, children, all would be involved in this trade. Now, when they were grown and got married or left the house, you know, they might be involved in another trade, but it was very often the case that fathers and mothers would teach their children their own trade and they might continue that. So let's just, for argument's sake, uh let's step back in time to Bible times. Let's think about the family of the baker. That uh he's teaching his children uh his trade. So the baker gets up early in the morning. Now, why does he do that, Brother Josh? Because he has to light a fire. You know, back in those days they had clay ovens or brick ovens, and so the baker would have to get up very early in the morning to make a fire. He would take wood, I'm sure that they had already gathered it, or maybe he would have to go gather it, but he would have to go uh get the wood, he would have to light the fire. Well, anybody that's ever cooked on a grill, especially a charcoal grill, knows that you can't just immediately start cooking right away. You have to, and especially if you cook with wood, you have to take the wood and light it. It has to catch on fire. And to begin with, that wood might be ablaze. It might be, that fire might be raging. The flames may be high. And so a lot of times, especially when you grill, you have to let that wood burn down. You have to let it burn down to charcoal so that so that the flames aren't just roaring, because it'll burn anything that gets near it. You'll ruin your meat or you'll ruin whatever you're you're grilling. Well, and again, I don't know all the intricacies of baking with wood, but I do know that wood is not like electricity or gas. In other words, it's a living thing. In other words, you can't, it can get out of control real easy. You can you can set that electric oven to 375 degrees and come back ten minutes later, it's 375 degrees exactly. Well, that wood is not that way. So that baker, brothers and sisters, don't you know that over time, he knows just how much wood to use, right? He knows the size wood that he needs to gather. He knows what time of the morning, if he has to get up at 4 o'clock to light when it's still dark, to go and put the right amount of wood in the brick oven and to go ahead and light it at 4 o'clock in the morning, so that in a matter of an hour or an hour and a half that that that fire has burned down to where it's still super hot, but now it's the flames aren't licking up all around the you know the brick oven. So now he knows that the fire is just right. And then don't you know that he also knows how to maintain that fire? Because that that wooden fire, it's it's losing fuel, right? That it's burning the wood up, so he has to constantly add wood to the fire. He has to constantly stoke the fire to make sure that it's fed, that the fire is maintained at that approximate temperature. And the baker, through his experience, knows that he can tell, well, maybe I put one too many sticks of wood in there, so the fire's a little bit hot, so I can't leave my bread in the oven quite as long. I have to pull it out, you know, uh 30 seconds sooner or a minute sooner or something like that. And that's all the little tricks, the trade that the baker learns over time. Well, also, the baker knows how to work with the dough. He knows how to properly season it, or how or the yeast, or the starter, or whatever that is, and he he knows the portions that he needs to cut off the dough, and what size he needs to make it to, and how he needs to knead it, and how long it needs to be left in the fire, and when it needs to be taken out. And so, and so, and he has to time all that just right because he knows what time in the morning that his first patrons are going to come into the shop to be able to buy bread or to get their bread. And also he knows that in those days, brothers and sisters, not everybody had a stove in their house. And there would be people in the community that would literally bring their own bread to the baker to be baked by him. And so they know that uh Miss Joan and Mr. John, when they bring their bread, they might have had two different kinds of bread. Or one might have had a way bigger loaf than the other one. Well, he knows how long to cook hers and how long to cook his. Why? Through experience. Now, what if the baker? We're to be sick one morning. I just can't get up. I'm sick as a dog, I'm bedridden. But his family still has to earn money. Well, son and daughter, I want y'all to go and run the business. You need to go and build a fire this morning. You need to go prepare that. So his five-year-old daughter, his teenage son, I need y'all to go and do the business. Well, Daddy, how do we do that? You're the one who builds the fire. You're the one who needs the bread. You're the one who knows how long to cook brother so-and-so's bread. We don't know all that. Well, how long have y'all worked with me? You've been getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning with me for the last three years. Or the teenage son, maybe he's been getting up with daddy for the last five years. Son, how many times have you seen me build a fire? Children are taught, number one, through example. Right? Through the example of the parent. They see mama and daddy do the thing. Well, then children are taught through discipline. I don't imagine the teenage son really wanting to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning for the last five years. But that's his dad's trade. And maybe he's learning to be a baker one day. Maybe the five-year-old little girl, she's learning to be a baker one day. I don't imagine the kids really want to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I don't imagine they really want to go and gather firewood. And sometimes I imagine they're pretty sleepy or they're pretty tired. Sometimes they're only half paying attention, right? Y'all tell me. I don't know how y'all are, but at 4 a.m. in the morning, my concentration's not quite as what it ought to be. But they learn through example. They also learn through actual physical discipline of actually doing the thing. You know, I could imagine over the course of that teenage son of the baker's lifetime that daddy didn't just make the fire every single time, son, you're making a fire this morning. So the son knows how to make the fire. Not only that, he knows how to tend the fire. He knows when it gets out of hand, when it's too much. I need to take some of the charcoal out, or I need to put more in. I need to know how to adjust how long I bake the bread. He's taught the son, he's taught the daughter. Well, then also, don't you know that he has taught them verbally? That he said, you know, as he's building the fire now, son, look right there. That fire's out of hand. It's going to burn every loaf of bread we put in there. It's too much. You've got to take a log out of the fire. Well, son, that that loaf of bread you just made is too big. It's not going to get done. It's going to be all doughy on the inside. You've got to make the loaf smaller than that. You can't do that. So the father has taught his son and his daughter through experience. So that day when the man is sick and he can't go and bake the bread, his teenage son and his young daughter, they get up and they actually run the shop. They actually get up and they make the fire and they they bake the bread to sell, and they know how much it sells for, right? They know the usual customers that come in and what time they come in. So then the father the next day he he feels better and he comes to the shop and he sees all those same faces again. And man, your son and daughter did a great job. They ran things like it was just like you were running it. Well, how did the son and daughter know how to do that? Because mama and daddy had taught them how to do that, right? Mama and daddy had catechized their children. Mama and daddy had taught their children, number one, by example, number two by physical discipline of actually doing the thing, and number three, by catechizing them, by orally teaching them what they're supposed to do. Right? That is how knowledge is passed on from one generation to another. That's how, you know, well, I've been a baker for four generations. My granddaddy's granddaddy, and well, did they teach you how to be a baker? Yes. All right, well, let's bring that over into the Christian realm. We've already expressed the fact that we know that a parent or a minister, cannot teach a person to know God. In other words, a parent or a minister cannot save somebody to heaven. That's not possible. That is an operation of God. God does that. However, a minister and a parent can teach young people and other people to know about God. In other words, brothers and sisters, I'm the quartermaster here. I'm the one who's handed out water bottles and who's handed out backpacks and who's handed out the instruction manuals. That this is what they told us to do. But do you know what? I'm not the only one that does that. Mama and daddy is supposed to do that. So, well, brother Josh, we've got a problem in America today. America is just not as much of a moral society as it used to be. You know why that is? It's because parents have stopped catechizing or teaching their children. It's not just the job of the baker to teach his children how to be bakers and teach them a physical skill. It's the job of every Christian parent who has ever drawn breath on planet Earth to actually purposefully and intentionally teach their children, number one, by example, by living their life, the way the Lord has instructed them in the scriptures, right, in the Bible, to live, to lead by example. Secondly, it's the job of parents to actually bring the children to church, to actually sing songs with the children, to actually quote and learn scripture with the children, to actually do the thing, right? To physically do the thing, to actually make the fire and to make the bread. And finally, it's the job of parents to orally instruct their children. This is how you do the thing. This is what that means. Mom and daddy, is it okay if I live with my boyfriend? No, it's not. I love you as my daughter, but I, as your father, do not condone the fact that you would live with someone that you're not married to, because that's a violation of God's word. And I love you, and I want better for you than that, and you need to have a higher standard because that is a sin. And when by the way, did y'all know that I heard this this week, this was uh interesting to me, that uh, well, Brother Josh, you know that the uh divorce rate among Christians is just the same as it is amongst lost people. That the divorce rate is 50%. Well, did y'all know that for the first time, I think it's been about five or seven years now, that there are more people living together that aren't married than are married today. In other words, what I mean by that is like if you were to say on a scale of 100, there'd be 51% or more of people that are actually living together that aren't married, and less are actually married. What's your point, Brother Josh? Y'all tell me, are things better today or worse? Well, Brother Josh, you know, uh, y'all Christians for the longest time, y'all said we need to be married. We're just not gonna be married, we're just gonna do things our own way. Well, it's still not working. Y'all follow me? In other words, people have tried the wrong thing. They've tried the not be in married part, and it's still not working, you understand? Are families better off today than they are? No. Brothers and sisters, we are to example and to actually do the thing with our children, and to orally teach them how to do the thing, not to go to heaven, but to honor God here and now. This is the way that teaching is supposed to work. So, what is the purpose of the scriptures? If mine and your goal in life is to, or mine and your purpose is to glorify God, don't you and I think that we should be teaching our children actually how to do that, right? Because otherwise, if I if I was the baker and I never taught my son how to build a fire, if I never taught my son how to regulate the heat, if I never taught my son how to bake the bread or my daughter, then one in the morning when I'm sick, I just throw them into the bake shop and say, y'all gotta go do this, y'all gotta go make our business success, and then it's an utter failure. Then the we can't do it, Dad. They've never been shown how to do it. So why are there so many young people today that are failing? Now, granted, do you understand it's not a hundred percent the fault of the parents, and it's not a hundred percent the fault of the children, it's a combination of the two. My point is that parents today should be proactively training and teaching their children the word of God, because if they don't, they're adding to the fact that they're gonna doom their children to failure. You know, you can have a young man who's an athlete, like in football or baseball, who's been diligently trained how to be literally a machine of a man, that he is physically fit, that his mind thinks about the plays and the games, and he is so disciplined, right? And in the operation of this uh, by the way, y'all know what football and baseball are? It is a form of entertainment. Do y'all know that? It's entertainment, right? So some of these young men and young women are trained to be professional entertainers, and they make millions of dollars being a professional entertainer of other people playing a sport on a field. And some of these men and women, I mean, they are so physically fit. And they're they're disciplined in their routine and in their meals that they eat and the way they live their lives, but yet, so on the field, their successes that they, I mean, they're the best quarterback, or they're the best, you know, uh professional uh women's basketball, whatever they are. They're the best at what they are, but yet in their own personal lives, they may be immoral people. Some of, not all of them, but some of them may have terrible character. They may just go and just waste their millions of dollars on selfish things. Because while on the one scene that they were very successful, and somebody took a great amount of time to train them and teach them how to do this sport and to do this thing, nobody ever took the time to lean into their lives to follow the Lord. To example that before them. Some of them didn't have mothers and fathers or didn't have, they were in the home. Nobody came alongside of them and literally discipled them and taught them, hey, let's do this thing together. Let's go to church together, let's sing together, let's pray together, let's read the Bible together, let's memorize scripture together. Nobody came alongside them to teach them how to do that. And then so, hey, go into the world and you be a success. You go and honor the Lord, which by the way, you and I are created to do what? You and I exist. Every human being on this earth exists to do what? To glorify and honor God. Amen. And yet we are utterly failing the next generation because we're not training them to do that very thing. Well, Brother Josh, I take them to church. Good for you. You should take them to church, and then the other six days of the week, you should also train them and teach them and example them and actively disciple them till the day they die. If you are, if I'm leaving the education of my children up to the public schools, they're going to turn out like Caesar. If I'm leaving the, I hope that you and I go to a godly church. I hope that I'm telling you the truth. By the way, if I'm not teaching the truth, y'all need to fire me. And you can quote me on that. If I'm not teaching the Bible and the scriptures, you should fire me as your pastor. Because I have no business standing in this pulpit if I'm not teaching the Word of God. But your training and your children's training and the training of your families should not just be left to me. You should actively be training yourselves. Those best athletes, they practice on the weekends, don't they? That young man who got to be good at football, how many times did he throw the ball? Did he just throw the ball when he was at school? Or on the weekends did he go and throw it a thousand times through an old tire hanging from a tree, right? He went and practiced on his own. He went and studied the scriptures on his own. He went and prayed on his own. He went and memorized the word of God on his own. That's how you get good at those things. You do them yourself. The Bible says, husbands, that we're to wash our wives with the word of God. You know, do y'all know that I feel very convicted sometimes talking about this because I have taught my family in the Word of God Sunday after Sunday coming to this church, but I've not done as good a job of teaching my family even in my own home on the other six days of the week. Now, I try to example that, I try to do that, but I could have done a whole better job of that. I'm just telling you that. But God calls all Christians to do this. Now that we got about five minutes left, Ephesians chapter six. And y'all notice the preacher said that he recognized that he only had five minutes left. Ephesians chapter six. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right, verse one. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that's one of the ten commandments, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. Verse 4, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Take your son and daughter to church. Go gather the firewood. Get them up at 4 o'clock in the morning. Drive them to the church house at the appropriate time. Show them how to light the wood. Show them how to bake the cake. Daddy, what did I didn't fully understand what the preacher preached on today. Alright, well, let's have a discussion about what we learned at church today. And then, well, Daddy, I didn't really want to go to church today. Well, son, I didn't either. I didn't feel real good. I had a headache all day long. But we did it anyway. Time and time and time and time again. You example it before your children. You give them the actual discipline of doing the thing, and you do it with them, and then you orally teach them. Daddy, what did he mean when he said so much so? I didn't understand that. Well, son, I didn't fully understand that either. Let's go look that up in the Bible together. You know, I'm thankful that they got YouTube, and maybe we can find out what this means, or if we don't figure it out, maybe we can go and ask him next Sunday. Time and time and time again. And then one day you wake up and your son and your daughter is 20, 30, 40 years old, and then you have grandchildren, and then you see your children taking their children to church. Why is that? Proverbs 22, 6, train up your child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Well, brother Josh, that's no guarantee that my children are going to honor the Lord. You're right. Y'all know that a lot of those Pharisees, those Jewish men that had been taught diligently in the Word of God, some of them were terrible human beings. The Proverbs in the Scripture is a book of wisdom. It is not a guaranteed promise in the Proverbs when it says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it, that literally means he will not depart easily from it. Because y'all tell me, do any Christian parents ever have wayward or rebellious children? Yes, absolutely. That's been a thing throughout the years, right? But it means that if you and I put in the labor and the discipline and the time and the energy and the effort to train up our children in the way they should go, it means that they will not easily depart from it. That young man or young woman, who their father and mother has spent a tremendous amount of time investing in their life to teach them how to be a baker. They may choose not to be a baker, right? They may not go into the young lady or the young man. He may go be a carpenter, she may go be a nurse or something like that. But you know what? That young lady on the weekends, she finds herself in a kitchen. She loves to bake. I remember mama's rolls. I remember mama's bread. Even the young man. You mean you're a man and you bake at home? Yes! Because Daddy taught me that. I have very fond memories of that. I had many an early morning when my dad and I went out to gather firewood. And he taught me how to make a fire. Train up a child on the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not easily depart from it. Brother Seth, what's your point, Brother Josh? We as parents and we as a church in the last century have not done so good a job. If we look out on the culture and see our children go in the wrong direction, then what you're actually seeing is the fruits of our labor, or rather the lack thereof. You see a whole generation whose fathers didn't get up with them and show them how to gather firewood and bake the bread. You see a whole generation of mom and daddy who didn't take their children to church and purposely live that out in their lives before them. And again, that's not the only reason, but but that is one of the large reasons. Do y'all know that uh there's a large group of children in our in our state, in our world today, that grow up without fathers in the home? Yet we want to spend all this money to fix all of our social problems. I I can tell you one of the ways to do that. Young men and women need to be married, and they need to stay married, and they need to rear their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and they need to lean in heavy to that job because y'all notice I'm closing my Bible, y'all be encouraged. I didn't even get to all those scriptures. We'll have to do that next Sunday. Um, do y'all know that I go to a 40-hour-a-week job that earns me money so that I can help feed my family and put a roof over their head? But do y'all know that that is not my primary job as a father and a husband? It's not. That is a given. Like in other words, I'm supposed to check that box. Every man on planet Earth is supposed to put a roof over his head and clothe and feed his family. And so I don't need a badge or an award, or a man doesn't need a badge and award for doing what he's supposed to do already, because if you and I are not doing that, then you and I are a wicked man and we're an infidel, and that's just a terrible, shameful thing. So that's a given that you and I are supposed to do that. But that is not even my primary calling and obligation. My primary mission as a husband and a father is to train up my children in the way they should go so that when they are old. They will not easily depart from it. I am supposed to example and live out a Christian life before the eyes of my children in person and be a man of character and integrity. And then I'm supposed to come alongside of them and actually actively disciple them and take them along to gather the firewood and to bake the bread and to take them to church and to memorize scripture with them and to actually train them about we shouldn't think that way and we shouldn't vote for that person. And this is why we do this and this is why we don't do that. And oh son, I failed you the other day, and I shouldn't have done that, and Daddy messed up, and Daddy made a mistake. Oh, my dear loving wife, I messed up, I was wrong. Please forgive me, and I'll try to not go do that again, kind of thing. And you and I are supposed to model that and live that before our children all the days of their life. And then on top of that, we're supposed to catechize them. We are supposed to orally teach them out of our mouths. And the things that you and I are orally teaching them out of our mouths should agree with the things that we are living out in our lives so that you and I are not hypocrites. Now, will we ever get that perfect this side of heaven? No. But are we supposed to fight and train like our life depended on it? And like the lives of our children depended on it? Should we fight hard? And should I lean into that even more than I lean into my 40-hour a week job that earns me money? Yes. Because when I leave my 40-hour-a-week job that earns me money, then I leave that workplace to go home to my primary calling of being a godly husband and a godly father before the eyes of my family, and that is my primary calling. The other one just enables me to first put a roof over their head and food on the table. Now, when I go home, my real job starts. And I can't let that other real job overshadow my other primary work. Brothers and sisters, we have a whole generation of young people that are not being trained as they are. We believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the revealed word of God. And they are our only rule of faith and practice. And it is my job as a minister to teach you, to equip the saints for service, to hand out water bottles and spiritual backpacks, so that then you can go home and be godly husbands and mothers and aunts and uncles and do your job, your primary job, to go home and you and I exist to glorify God so that you and I can go home and glorify him better in our own houses. Amen. So that hopefully you and I can transform the next generation of young people to do the same. So me and may you and I have uh more four o'clock mornings of going together firewood, spiritual firewood, with our wives and our children and our families and our grandchildren and our friends. And may you and I lean into that job even more than we lean into our paying jobs. I hope this will be an encouragement to you. I'm gonna ask Brother Don if he would come up and help us close in a word song. Church doors are always open if you desire to unite with the membership of our church.