It Takes God to Make a Home | Part 1

Should we be concerned for the souls of the next generation?

Listen to Adrian Rogers. Now, our young people today, many of them could not recite the Ten Commandments. Many of them who are members of churches, but most of their parents could not give you by memory the Ten Commandments.

And these kids have those blue-faced computers and televisions in their room, but they're becoming roadkill on the information highway. They do not understand the Word of God and the truth of God. Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the powerful, timeless messages from pastor and author Adrian Rogers. Our families cannot survive apart from a moral base, which is why it takes God to make a home. God's plan for the home is to be so supercharged with spiritual truth and godliness that these things will go from one generation to the next. Now, to do that, we need to refer back to the timeless Ten Commandments found in Deuteronomy chapter 5.

If you have your Bible, turn there now as Adrian Rogers begins part one of It Takes God to Make a Home. Now, the Ten Commandments are given in two places. They're given in Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter 5. I've chosen Deuteronomy chapter 5 today for a specific purpose, though we may spend the rest of our time and the rest of the commandments in Exodus chapter 20. You'll find out why I've chosen Deuteronomy 5 in just a moment.

Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 6, I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the waters beneath the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them nor serve them.

For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days shalt thou labor and do thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it, thou shalt not do any work. Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughters, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm. Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day. Honor thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may be well within the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill, neither shalt thou commit adultery, neither shalt thou steal, neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbor, neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's house, his field or his manservant or his maidservant, his ox or his ass or anything that is thy neighbor's. Now that's one listing of the Ten Commandments.

You can find them again in slightly different wording, the same meaning in Exodus chapter 20. And if you are an informed individual, you know that there is a culture war going on in America. It is the battle for the soul of America. The battleground is the home, and the issue is truth. And Satan has aimed all of the artillery of hell at the homes of America, and every shell in that artillery is a lie. Satan's chief weapon is deception. Now Satan had rather peddle a lie than peddle dope. Satan had rather get you to believe a wrong thing than to do a wrong thing. A lie is the most dangerous thing on the face of this earth. It is antithetical to God who is the truth whose word is truth. And so Satan is a pusher of lies because it is the thought that is the father of the deed.

And if he can get a nation to move away from its truth, if the foundations be destroyed, then what can the righteous do? Now we live in a generation that has lost its fixed standards, it's lost its moorings, it's lost its compass, it's lost its anchor. We now have morality by majority, and the result is chaos in society. I'm sick and tired of hearing about the left and the right, the religious right and the religious left. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not an issue of left or right.

It is an issue of right or wrong. There is a God. There is a God, and that God has given us His ten commandments. Now, our young people today, many of them could not recite the ten commandments. Many of them who are members of churches, but most of their parents could not give you by memory the ten commandments.

And these kids have those blue-faced computers and televisions in their room, but they're becoming roadkill on the information highway. They do not understand the Word of God and the truth of God. Put this down big and plain and straight. There is no goodness without God. There is no goodness without God. The title of our message today as we deal with the first commandment, it takes God to make a home. It takes God to make a home.

Something horrible is happening in America. In early eras, ministers regularly exhorted congregations to humbly confess our sins, but the aging baby boomers who are rushing back to church do not want to hear sermons that might rattle their self-esteem. And many clergy who are competing in a buyer's market feel they cannot afford to alienate.

May God help us. And I want to say to any preacher who may be listening, be grateful if people come to hear you preach, but it is not your job to fill the auditorium. It's your job to fill the pulpit, whether they will hear it or whether they will not. And I'm sick and tired of marketing religion and pandering to people's desires. We have a nation today that needs to hear, Thus saith the Lord.

We need a sure word from God. William Bennett, former secretary of education and a drug czar, says this, there's a clear sense from the American people that this is a problem that has deep roots. It's a problem of social disintegration.

It is a problem about values. I feel sorry for today's young people. I was in an airport in Orlando. I saw a young man, I suppose he was about 18 years of age. He had an earring in one ear.

He had a lot of facial hair. And he was wearing a t-shirt. And on this t-shirt, he was wearing a t-shirt I picked out my pen and wrote down what he said on the back.

Here's what it said on the back of his t-shirt. He said, I am not scared. I am not afraid. I am an animal. I will eat you alive if I have to.

No fear. That's what he said on the back of his t-shirt. Now, indeed, we're raising a generation of youngsters who feel like animals. And why shouldn't they feel like animals? They've been taught they've come from animals.

They've been taught that they were not created in the image of God, but they are an accident of nature. This young man wearing a t-shirt that says he's not afraid, I think he was very much afraid. We used to have a cat when a dog would come in, she'd puff up like that. You ever seen a cat do that? Just puff up real big? That's what he was doing.

He was just puffing up because he was so afraid. And I think one of the reasons that he was so afraid that he had to advertise that he was not afraid was that he did not know what we're trying to teach our young people today when we're teaching them God's Ten Commandments, beginning with the first one which says, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now, the commandments are found in Deuteronomy chapter 5, but I want you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and understand here that God is telling us how we are to keep these commandments and to teach these commandments. Look, if you will, in chapter 6 and verse 1. 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, thou and thy son and thy son's son, all the days of thy life that thy days may be prolonged. God says if you want your home and your nation to last, then take these commandments and hand them down from father to son.

Now, James Madison is called the father of the American Constitution. I want you to listen to this. Here's what he said. We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government.

Far from it. We have staked the future of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. That's what James Madison said. He said we staked everything on the ability of the American populace to govern themselves and control themselves according to the Ten Commandments.

Now, that's not a preacher who said that. That's the father of the Constitution. Now, those same Ten Commandments have been removed from the classrooms in America's schools. Now, the father of the Constitution said you cannot govern yourselves apart from the Ten Commandments.

And America cannot survive apart from a moral base, and your home cannot survive apart from a moral base. Now, read with me, if you will, as to what God says that fathers are to do and mothers are to do in their home. I'm going to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Now, he's restating again the commandment that I just gave to you.

I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 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, and 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, and it shall be when the Lord thy God hath brought thee unto the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of all good things which thou fillest not, and wells which thou diggest not, and vineyards and olive trees which thou plantest not, when thou shalt have eaten and be full then, then Israel, listen, then America, listen, then beware, lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Now this passage that I've read to you, the Jews consider to be the most important passage in the book of Deuteronomy, if not in the entire Bible, is called the Shema. Orthodox Jews would repeat this at least twice a day. They repeat it in the congregation. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might, and teach this, fathers, to your children. Now, we complain if the Ten Commandments are not posted in public places today, but the question is, how many parents here today know the Ten Commandments? The question is, how many of us have the Ten Commandments posted in our home?

God told Moses, Moses, tell them to put these laws upon the doorposts of their house. And God said, fathers, it is your responsibility, not the government's nor the schoolteachers, to teach these commandments to your children. Fathers, it is your responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the school.

It is not the responsibility of the government. It is the responsibility of dads to see that these commandments are handed down. This is God's priority plan. God says that the home is to be so supercharged with spiritual truth and godliness that these things will go from one generation to another.

For the most part, a juvenile delinquent is a child trying to act like his parents. And the great problem today is not dropout kids, but dropout dads and misguided mothers who have failed to hand down these truths from one generation to another. Now, listen, this is Deuteronomy chapter 6, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Now that I call the great revelation, one Lord. Now not just one God, one Jehovah, one Lord. You know, everybody's going to believe something and some kind of a God, but we're not just talking about the God of your choice.

Somebody gave me this a while back. It's called the mush God, M-U-S-H, mush. Did you ever eat mush for breakfast? The mush God. The mush God has been known to appear to millionaires on golf courses.

He appears to politicians at ribbon cutting ceremonies and to clergymen speaking the invocation on national television at either Democratic or Republican conventions. The mush God has no theology to speak of, being a cream of wheat divinity. The mush God has no particular credo, no tenets of faith, nothing that would make it difficult for a believer and non-believer alike to lower one's head when the temporary chairman tells us that reverend, rabbi, father, mufti, or so-and-so will lead us in an innocuous, harmless prayer. For this God of public occasions is not a jealous God.

You can even invoke him to start a hooker's convention and he, slash, she, or it who won't be offended. Protector of the buddy system, the mush God is the Lord of secular ritual of the necessary but hypocritical forms and formalities that hush the divisive and the derisive. The mush God is a serviceable God whose laws are chiseled, not on tablets but written on sand, open to amendment, qualification, and erasure. This is a God that will compromise with you, make allowances, and declare all wars holy and all pieces hallowed. The mush God. You ever met him?

He's all around. That's the God that Americans want to believe in, the mush God. But we're not talking about the mush God. We're talking about Jehovah God. We're talking about the one who made it all who said, I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The great revelation is one Lord.

How do you know, Pastor Rogers? Well, number one, Scripture declares the fact of God. You might think the first commandment would say, thou shalt not be an atheist, and thou shalt not believe in atheism, but it doesn't do that. The Bible never even argues the fact of atheism. The Bible just begins, Genesis 1-1, in the beginning, God.

Sweetly, sublimely, surely, in the beginning, God. God only gives one half of one verse to atheism. Psalm 14, verse 1, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. I'm not here today to try to prove God to you. I'm not here to argue with you about it. I've learned never argue with a fool in public.

Somebody standing around won't be able to tell who's who. The Bible says, the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. The Bible simply states God.

A man who denies facts is a fool, and a man who denies the supreme fact is the supreme fool. The Scriptures declare the fact of God. Have you ever noticed, when you try to teach a little child about God, how simple it is? When you try to teach a child there is no God, how convoluted the arguments become? One atheistic father was trying to teach his child there is no God, and after he'd gotten finished with his long, drawn-out explanation of how everything just happened, the little child looked at the daddy and said, Daddy, do you think God knows we don't believe in him?

You see, that is innate in the human heart. The Scriptures declare the fact of God, and creation displays the hand of God. We talk about the laws of science. They're not the laws of science. You look at creation. These are the laws of God that science has discovered. And the scientists are no more capable of creating those laws than Columbus was capable of creating North America.

He simply discovered what was already there. But yet your children, your children are taught in school that they evolved, that they came out of primordial ooze, and you cannot teach creation. And yet the Declaration of Independence says we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

Something is wrong here, folks, when our nation was built on the fact that God who made us gave us those rights, and now we cannot teach that in public schools. You know what they're taught? They're taught that billions and billions of years and time plus chance will bring life out of inorganic matter, which they can't explain where it came from, that inorganic matter. And then given billions and billions more of years, time will turn frogs into princes. Now, if you tell that in the nursery school, it's called a fairy tale.

Tell it in the classroom, it's called science, when frogs become princes. But that's the monkey mythology, that we have a generation that's being taught. No, how do we know that there's one Lord? The Scripture declares it, friend. Creation displays it, and faith discovers it.

Faith discovers it. Nobody's ever argued into believing in God. People accuse us of being believers. They say, you're a believer. Friend, everybody is a believer.

The atheist is a believer. He says to me, prove there's a God. I say, I can't. He just laughs. I say, prove there is no God.

He can't either. He says, well, I don't believe there's a God. I say, that makes you a believer. You believe there is no God. And you believe by faith there is no God. I believe there is a God. I believe by faith there is a God, but I believe with evidence. I have the external evidence, I have the internal evidence. I have the creation, and I have the witness of God in my heart. And if you want to believe in God, you can believe in God. The matter is not in your head, it is in your heart. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.

He doesn't have intellectual problems. He has moral problems because he does not want this God to rule over him. You see, friend, God so wired you, God so made you, God so created you, that when your heart is right, your heart will respond to the fact of God like my eye responds to light when my eye is right, like my ear responds to sound when my ear is right.

Your heart will respond to God when your heart is right. The great revelation is this. Hear, O Israel, there is one God. The Lord our God is one Lord. The Lord our God is one Lord.

Now, coming up tomorrow, we'll hear the powerful conclusion of this message. But maybe you have questions now about who God is, what Jesus means to you, how to receive the forgiveness he's offering you. Go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio and find resources and materials that can answer questions you may have about your faith. Again, go to lwf.org slash radio and click Discover Jesus. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, request one by the title of It Takes God to Make a Home and call us to order at 1-877-LOVE-GOD.

This message is also part of the powerful series of perfect 10 for homes that win. For the complete collection, all 10 insightful messages, call that number 1-877-LOVE-GOD, or you can go online to lwf.org slash radio or write us to order at Love Worth Finding Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Thanks for joining us in our study of God's word today. Have you had the great revelation of one Lord? Remember what Adrian Rogers said, God so created you that when your heart is right, your heart will respond to the fact of God. What a powerful reminder today.

Don't miss part two of this insightful message. It takes God to make a home tomorrow right here on Love Worth Finding. Oh, I have great testimony that we received from a listener that I want you to hear today.

She wrote this. I grew up in a strong Christian home. When the church doors were open, we were there. I gave my life to the Lord and savior at the age of 12. I rededicated my life as an adult at the age of 30. I'm 72 years old and still attend and I'm very active in the same church I attended my entire life. I serve the Lord with gladness and Thanksgiving. I'm eternally grateful for my Christian heritage spanning many generations. We love it when listeners like you share your faith story with others and for a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you our 2020 Christmas cards featuring an original painting by local artist Lacey Hancock. Request a pack of 2020 Christmas cards when you call with a gift right now at 1-877-LOVEGOD.