A Future for the Family is Promised

Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ, and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth, simply stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. A future for the family. Moses is giving his farewell address to the children of Israel. He has poured his life into them. He wants his work to last. He wants the nation to endure. And he knows that the nation cannot endure.

unless there is a future for the family. And notice what he says here in Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 29. He's speaking of his people, and he says, Oh, that there were such an heart in them. And he's speaking for God.

Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well prepared for them. and with their children forever. A future for the family. And I'm telling you, ladies and gentlemen, it may not be well for us and for our children unless we make some radical changes.

Something tragic is wrong in America. Our kids are walking through a minefield, and they're being blown to bits, and going to hell. God's answer is what it has always been, the family. And God's word still says, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it. Now, after Deuteronomy chapter 5, Moses gives the most important passage in all of the book of Deuteronomy and one of the key passages in all of the Bible. To our Jewish friends, this is one of the most important scriptures that they know, and Jewish children memorize it as a child. Deuteronomy chapter 6, look at it. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it, that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I commanded thee.

Now, watch it. Thou and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life, that thy days may be prolonged. What is he saying? That there may be a future for the family. And now, here's the instruction.

Listen to it. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. Now, this is God's plan. This is God's formula that the family might have a future. Somebody was reminiscing, and this is what a couple of old-timers were saying, one to another. We were born before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, Frisbees, and the pill. We were born before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens, before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes, and before man walked on the moon.

We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be? In our time, closets were for clothes, not for coming out of. Bunnies were small rabbits, and rabbits were not Volkswagens.

Designer jeans were scheming girls named Jean. And having a meaningful relationship meant getting along well with our cousins. We were born before house husbands, gay rights, computer dating, dual careers, and computer marriages. We were born before daycare centers, group therapy, and nursing homes. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt, and guys wearing earrings.

For us, time sharing meant togetherness, not computers or condominiums. A chip meant a piece of wood. Hardware meant hardware, and software wasn't even a word. In 1940, made in Japan meant junk.

And the term making out referred to how you did on your exam. Pizzas, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. In our day, grass was mowed, coke was a drink, and pot was something you cooked in.

Rock music was a grandma's lullaby, and aides were helpers in the principal's office. We were certainly not born before the difference between the sexes was discovered, but we were surely born before the sex change. We made do with what we had, and we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder we're so confused, and there's such a generation gap today. But we survived. I'm just wondering if this new generation is going to survive.

We talk about progress, but I wonder just how much progress are we making. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you with a note of urgency and alarm in my heart that I am concerned. And therefore, I have felt impressed of the Holy Spirit to bring this series of messages entitled A Future for the Family. Again, I want to say that your children and your grandchildren are walking through a minefield. There's so many churches that are filled with liberalism. Kids are going to those churches where the authority of the Word of God and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ are not being made manifest.

And the worship is empty and futile and even dangerous. And these kids have lost their moorings. Somebody as well said in the 50s, the kids lost their innocence. Somehow they seemed to be liberated by music and films and education and cars and money, and they had a freedom. And after having lost their innocence in the 50s, in the 60s, that time of rebellion, then they lost their authority.

And all of the answers were challenged. If you can remember the 60s, the kids challenged their parents, the religion, the government. Nothing replaced the authorities. And so the youth were left without anything to believe. And then in the 70s, they lost their ability to love.

It became a me decade. Not knowing how to love, kids who had an innate ability to love substituted sex for love. And they didn't know the difference. But now in our day and in our age, having lost their innocence and having lost their authorities and having lost the ability to love, folks, they've lost hope. That's the reason you can pick up our newspaper or any newspaper and find teenagers killing themselves in an epidemic way. Teenagers who in the bloom of youth have no hope. They've stopped believing in the future.

That's the reason I want to bring this series of messages entitled A Future for the Family. Not only are the kids facing this liberalism in the churches, they're facing secularism and humanism in the schools, and it breaks my heart. We were laughing about the 40s back when some of us were children. But do you remember what the problems were in the 40s in school? Skipping school, running in the halls, talking in class, not having your homework done, talking during study hall, every now and then breaking a window? With the exception of perhaps one or two of those, I plead guilty to every one.

And I think most of us would. But what's happening in the schools today, and I do not blame the educators as such, many of them godly, people are doing the best they can. What are the problems today? Violence, stealing, rape, teacher abuse, deadly weapons on the school grounds, vandalism, arson, gang war, dope, right in the schools. Again, I want to ask the question, how are the kids going to survive? You think about what the kids are seeing in society today.

Liberalism in the churches, humanism in the schools, and paganism in society. Did you know that the alcohol industry is spending literally millions of dollars every year in advertising trying to seduce your teenager? They deny it, but they're lying.

They're lying, they're trying to seduce your teenager, and they're doing a good job. Thirty-two gallons of beer every year per capita, that is, everybody in the United States averages 32 gallons per year. Now, somebody drank 64 because I didn't drink any, but that's an average per capita. I read something the other day that broke my heart. Ninety-five percent of college students drink beer.

Ninety-five percent. Well, you say that's harmless. It's not harmless. One out of every 15 who begins to drink will become an alcoholic. That's not harmless.

That's absolutely dangerous. But the beer distributors are liars. They don't tell the truth. They show those fellows out there in that old Milwaukee bass boat. They catch a big bass about, you know, about a nine pounder, and then they're coming to the shore and they're cooking him, and they're sitting around hoisting a foamy beer, and one of them says to the other one, it just doesn't get any better than this. Well, maybe he is telling the truth there because, dear friend, it never gets better than that.

It always gets worse. It may not get that good, but they never show the drunk in the back alley covered with vomit and flies. They don't show that.

They show these healthy, robust young men sitting around the campfire having a big time. They don't show the teenager sliced up in the emergency room. They don't show the old lady who's just been run over by a drunkard beared up.

My dear friend, it's a minefield out there. You think of what the kids are watching. Did you know, dear friend, that on television that if a drink is served, do you know what that drink will be? Ten times to one it will be alcohol.

Not milk, not a soft drink, not a milkshake. Ten times to one it will be alcohol in any situation. Have you ever seen a situation where something's a little tense and somebody says, I need a drink?

Sure. You see, that is conditioning the minds of these young people to think when you're tense, when there's a problem, when there's an emergency, where do you go? You go to the liquor cabinet. Did you know that in any kind of a sexual situation on television, 88% of all sexual encounters are shown on television as being outside the bonds of matrimony. Eighty-eight percent. Friend, there is a problem, and then the kids are being inundated by this rock music. And do you know what the ultimate pornography is? MTV. Pornography set to music. And you'd be amazed at what is happening in the hearts and minds. The message of rock music is primarily sexual promiscuity, bisexuality, fatalism, demonic worship, alcohol, and rebellion.

And concerning sex, rock music gives the message that you can go all the way without consequences. These kids talk about going all the way. They don't know what going all the way is.

That's the problem. They haven't gone all the way. When she gets pregnant, you've gone a little further down the way. When you contract a venereal disease, you've gone a little further down the way. Or when there is a baby conceived and you have to drop out of school to take care of that baby, or worse, you go into an abortion-torium to have that baby put to death, you've gone a little further down the way. When you have to face her father, you've gone a little further, mister. But you haven't gone all the way until you face God in the judgment who says, Flee fornication, thou shalt not commit adultery. When you face a God whose laws you've broken.

But these kids are having this drummed into their heads day after day after day. What are we going to do? What is God's plan? Well, go back to Deuteronomy chapter 6. And I hated to give that litany, but I wanted to set the stage for something that is vibrating in my heart and in my soul.

And this will be a series of messages, and I pray, God, that you'll not miss a single one. Now, there are three basic things Deuteronomy tells us, and all of this is just to set the stage. First of all, a future for the family is promised.

Write it down. A future for the family is promised. Look in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1 and 2. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whether ye go to possess it, that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I commanded thee.

Now, here's the promise. Thou and thy son and thy son's son, that's your grandson, all the days of thy life and that thy days may be prolonged. God has promised a future for the family, and it starts with the parents. Plato said the life of the nation is the life of the family written large.

A juvenile delinquent is so many times a child just trying to act like his parents. Second thing I want you to notice. Not only is a future for the family promised, but a foundation for the family is provided. Now, what is the foundation for the family?

Look in verses 3 through 5. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it that it may be well with thee that ye may increase mightily as the Lord God of your fathers hath promised thee in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Now, here's the foundation for the family. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. That is the foundation for the family. It is a love for God. It may sound simple and even simplistic, but it is incredibly true and profound. Love God with a sincere love. That means with all of your heart, moms and dads. Now, if you do not sincerely love God, you don't have much of a chance of having a successful family.

As a matter of fact, you have no real chance of having a successful family. Many kids are turned off because they see that their parents, while they profess religion, they don't love God with all of their heart. Karl Marx, as a little child, was raised in a Jewish family. They lived in Germany. One day, Karl's father said to him, we're moving to another city.

They moved to another city. They had been attending synagogue faithfully. When they moved to another city, Karl Marx's father came home and said, we're no longer going to synagogue. We're going to go to the Lutheran church. And Karl asked his father, he said, why, father, are we going to the Lutheran church? Do you know what Karl Marx's father said? He said, because of business reasons. He said, I can make contacts in the Lutheran church.

Business contacts. Karl Marx was so disillusioned with his father that something died within him. He said to himself, my father has no real convictions.

He moved to England and he later, of course, founded the movement that we know of as communism. And in his writings, he said this, religion is the opiate of the people. Religion is just a dope, an opiate, because he had a father and he saw that the father did not have a sincere love for God. We're to love God with a sincere love. We're to love God with a selfless love, with all your soul. Now, the soul is the self. Kids are looking for parents who have such integrity that there's nothing in their life that is marked off as private.

God, stay out. Kids want to see parents who bring God into their family, recreation, into the business, in the relationship with husband and wife. A sincere love and a selfless love and a strong love.

Love God with all of your might. Now, that's the foundation from the family. With all of your strength, physical strength, emotional strength, financial strength, intellectual strength, love God, that's the foundation for the family. Now, let's get down to the last and most important thing. Listen, there's a future for the family that's promised.

There's a foundation for the family that's provided. That is to love God with all of your heart, your soul, and your might. Now, last of all, let me tell you, there is a formula for the family that is prescribed right here.

Now, this is where your parents need to tune in. God says that your faith is to go from you to your children. It is not my job, nor the Sunday school teacher's job, nor the college professor, nor anybody at a club or anybody else to teach your children.

It is primarily your job. That's what Deuteronomy chapter 6 is talking about. A psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic said this, if the husband or father is not the head of the family, there can be nothing but chaos.

The father is to provide stability and leadership and character and strength for the family. Now, the Bible makes it very plain and very clear. Look, if you will, in verse 6. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

God is saying that nobody can do this for you. We have mothers now who are being pushed out of their God-given assignment in the home. And millions of unattended children are roaming the streets or they're put in daycare centers. And there are forces, powerful and sinister forces that are taking the plastic mentality of these children and molding those minds.

And as I've said before, the television has become a babysitter for so many kids. God made your child to be dependent upon you, and you cannot pay somebody else to take this responsibility. You need to start with the children when they're young, when their minds are ready to receive. How old should a child be when you begin to train him for God? A woman asked a pastor, she said to the pastor, how soon should I start the spiritual training of my child? And the pastor said, well, how old is the child? She said, five.

He said, you're five years too late. And actually they're saying that you should begin now singing to the baby in its mother's womb, that the baby listens in the womb. And you ought to be singing and making those melodic songs to that baby in the womb. Francis Xavier, the Catholic educator said, you give me the children until they're seven and anyone can have them from there on. You see, you need to start with the children early. Now let me tell you, dear friend, how you are to teach your children, and then I'll be finished.

I want to give you about five ways and you just jot them down. First of all, you are to do it convincingly. Look, if you will, in verse 6. The Bible says, and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. If you're a phony, your kids will spot you right away. My children know that their daddy is not perfect, but none of my children will say their dad is a phony.

And they know their mama's not a phony. They know that we have our faults, but they know that they know that we love God with all of our hearts. These words shall be in thine heart, but not only should God's word be taught convincingly, it ought to be taught creatively.

Look in verse 7, if you will, of this same chapter. And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou lies down and when thou risest up. Now the problem in so many of our homes, all of a sudden we get on a religion jag and we say, you kids are going to learn the Bible.

You sit still while I end still. That's not the way God's word is to be taught. God's word is to be taught creatively. When you go in and out of the house, when you wake up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, constantly you're to be teaching the word of God.

How do you do it? Oh, sure, there's to be a set time of Bible reading, but Bible stories and games, Bible memory, Christian books, Christian albums. You see, teach it convincingly, my dear friend. Teach it creatively. Teach it consistently. Look, if you will, in verse 7 of this same chapter again. The Bible says, and thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children. Now, you know, what that means is consistently.

The problem with so many of us is we just get started and then we stop and then we start and then we stop. But God's word says diligently. How many of you are diligently in teaching your children? Isaiah 28 verses 9 and 10 says this. Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine?

Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. Friend, that's the way to teach the word of God. Just do it diligently. Here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept.

It's not easy, but oh, the cumulative force is so wonderful. But not only should you teach it convincingly and not only should you teach it creatively and not only consistently, but teach it conversationally. Look, if you will, again in verse 7. And thou shalt talk of them. Not just simply recite them, but talk of them.

In your conversation, what does this mean? If you are a wise parent or grandparent, you'll find hundreds of ways every day to apply the word of God. It doesn't have to be dull. It can be so interesting. You don't give them the word of God like cod liver oil, a dose a day keeps the devil away. In your conversation, so many ways, you see faith is caught as well as taught. And bad things are caught. Some of you go home after Sunday services and you have roast preacher for dinner.

Those little ears are listening. My dear friend, be careful what you say. Talk of the word of God. Apply the Bible to life situations.

And then may I say that you teach the word of God conspicuously. Look in verse 8. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Now the Jews had little boxes they called phalacrates. With leather, they would tie a portion of the word of God to their hands and put some right between their eyes here on the forehead.

They took this literally. And certainly there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there's a far deeper meaning. The word of God between your eyes means whatever you think is to be controlled by the word of God. The word of God on your hand means whatever you do is to be controlled by the word of God.

But there is a principle here. Verse 9, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. That is, your house ought to have scriptural mottos.

The word of God and pictures and everything that will remind people of Jesus. The atmosphere of your home conspicuously teach the word of God. Now, my time has gone, and all I've tried to do in this message is just simply to say that God has given us a promise of a future. God says you do this, it'll be well with you and your son and your son's son. And then God has given us a foundation. God says that if you will love me with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength, God says that it'll be well with you. There'll be a future for your family. And then God says it is up to you, parents, listen, it is up to you to teach your children the word of God. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.