Nobody told you you have a glorious future. Nobody told you you were somebody special. Nobody told you. Dr. Tony Evans says earthly fathers need to speak heavenly principles.
desperate need today for men to be called back to a biblical definition of not maleness, but of manhood. This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. When a problem goes unchecked, it can become a crisis. And when a crisis is left unresolved, it can turn into a curse.
Today, Dr. Evans explains why the epidemic of fatherlessness in America fits that description and what we can do to help reverse it. Let's listen. Malachi chapter 3, verses 4 through 6. Remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb.
For all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.
So that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. These are not good days for fatherhood. In fact, I can pretty confidently say that fatherlessness Is the scourge of our time. More than 24 million children in the United States. grow up without their biological fathers in the home.
The result is increased poverty, drug addiction, dropout, delinquency. In fact, 63% of youth who commit suicide. have no father in the home. 90% of the homeless young people are sold because there's no father in the home. 80% of young rapists did not grow up without a father in the home.
71% of school dropouts have no father in the home. 70% of juvenile delinquents have no father in the home. 94% of prisoners in jail grew up without a father. They're a generation today of women with nobody to marry. because the ones that are available aren't worth marrying.
Because this is a social scourge. when fathers are nowhere to be found. The Bible pictures fatherlessness. As not merely a social problem, but as a spiritual problem. It's not just there because society has problems, which means.
That if it's not merely a social problem, you can't just solve it with a social solution. God has said in this passage that this breach of fatherlessness. is because there is an impending curse on the culture. And a curse in the Bible. Is a spiritual problem that must be resolved spiritually.
The Bible distinguishes between two things: blessings and curses. Blessings are the beneficial goodness that God provides to and through his people. Curses, on the other hand, Curses are the The negative of Patterns that develop in a person or in a group that's transferred. Cross-generationally. But the reality is that today we're raising a generation who neither know their biological father nor any surrogate.
worth their while. And the Bible says that this curse, this smiting of the land, this this negative rollover that occurs cross-generationally. It's a spiritual problem because it is indicative of a curse. God wanted to reverse this fatherless curse.
Now, why was this a big deal? Why was it a big deal to return the hearts of the father to the children and the hearts of the children to the father? What did that have to do with the land? And its well-being, and the culture, and its well-being. Why was this fatherless deal so big?
Because the blessing of God was passed to the Father. That's why Esau could say, Bless me, O father. That's why Jacob tricked Esau for the blessing. God said, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Now, he wasn't dissing females. But he was saying, but that the father would be the key linchpin. By which the goodness of God would be transferred down to the children. It would be the father who would be positioned, like Adam, to hear from God, translate it to his family, and pass it down generationally.
Well, now, if the father is the key person to transfer the blessing down generationally, and you were the enemy, you would get rid of dad. Because there would be a higher possibility that the blessing would not be passed down. In fact, there are a lot of people here still looking for their daddy's blessing. Still looking for some male to stand over you and to promise you a glorious future. See, that's what the blessing did.
The blessing said, God has something special for your tomorrow. See, we have a generation of children today who've never been blessed. My dad.
So they don't see a future. You can go a long way in a messed up today if you can see a better tomorrow. But if you've never been blessed and nobody has ever laid hands on you and told you God's special, glorious future for your tomorrow, then you don't see down the line. All you see is now.
So if now is messed up, you're messed up too. The problem today is many people are living under a curse that they think is a social problem.
So they want the government to fix it. They want other folk to fix it, not understanding if it's a spiritual curse, it can only be spiritually corrected. It's like this. It's like going against the wind or going with the wind. If you're going with the wind, you're going the way the wind is going.
If you're going against the wind, you're going in opposition to the wind. What God was saying is: if you remember my covenant and turn around, you'll go with my blessings, then against my blessings, which is called a curse. Or let me put it this way. In Ezekiel 18, it says this: it says, the fathers will eat sour grapes. and the teeth of their children will be rotten.
It says the fathers will start it off by eating sour grapes, but it's going to show up in the teeth, the rottenness of their kids.
So you think it's bad now? Wait till our children start having children. And it's a spiritual problem that can only be addressed spiritually.
So he says, remember the law of Moses, remember the agreement. That's why when you take communion, the Bible says, Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. He's not just saying, think nice thoughts about me, he's saying, remember this agreement we have. That's why communion is called the communion of the new covenant. This is the new covenant I make with you.
Remember the agreement, this arrangement that I have. And this arrangement must be addressed. in order for your circumstance to change. A lot of people want to change in the circumstance when they're not abiding by the agreement. You have to be operating covenantally if you want the benefits of the covenant.
Don't be surprised if you, your family, or your culture is deteriorating when you have forgotten the agreement. God told the men of Israel in Exodus 34, he says, Three times a year, bring all the men out from the land of Israel, all the males, he says, out from the land of Israel to come before the Lord their God. He said, three times a year, tell all the males to come before the Lord their God. That's a scary proposition. If all your men are leaving, that means there's no military.
If all your men are leaving, there's no commerce. If all your men are leaving, there's no protection for the families left behind. He says, you bring all the men out before the Lord, all the males out before the Lord. And then the Lord says, and while you are gone, Don't worry, because there will be no nation that will cross your border, nobody that will hurt your family. While you come to the Lord, I have your back covered, but you are every male in the nation, you ought to bring all the males before the Lord their God, so I can tell them how to be men.
Then I'm going to send you back home and back to your culture because you don't know how to be a man until I tell you. He says, and I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. If you grew up with two parents, that was probably a time, particularly if you had a strong father, where your mother says, wait till your daddy gets home. Wait till your daddy gets home. In other words, I'm not going to keep.
Messing with you.
Okay, you're not listening to me, so wait till your daddy gets home. Yeah. He says Before the great and terrible day of the Lord. In other words, I'm gonna tell you now, but if you don't listen to me now, There will be a great and terrible day.
So, what she would argue is: if you will listen to me now, you won't have to deal with daddy later. God says, I'm gonna send you Elijah the prophet. Before The great and terrible day of the Lord, before I have to come down here and take care of this mama myself. I don't know. I am going to give you the prophet.
Now, the job of a prophet was to give the people of God the mind of God on a matter. His job was to speak on God's behalf and give them spiritual help before God had to come in order to judge the day of the Lord. See, there are two days. There are really only two days in history: there's the day of the Lord and the day of man. The day of man is when you get to make decisions, the day of the Lord is when God makes the decisions for you.
He talks about this second day, this day of the Lord. If in the day of man you do not make the decisions, then God will speak. And he'll speak with a loud voice. Dr. Evans will return with more of our message in just a moment.
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I'll repeat that information after the second part of today's lesson. Here's Dr. Evans picking up his study on how to reverse the curse of fatherlessness. The word Elijah is from two words because Elijah was the prophet that was taken up to heaven. It's from El, which means might or strength, and Yah, which means God.
Elijah is a messenger. His name is used as a messenger of God sent to give spiritual insight on a matter before God has to deal with it himself. Here's what you want. You don't want the day of the Lord. That's not what you want.
You want Elijah. You want a messenger from God who will get you back on track before God has to get you back on track directly. He says, here's what Elijah will do: he will restore. The hearts of the fathers to the children. And then he will restore the hearts of the children to the Father.
He will reconnect broken relationships. There was a broken relationship of the nation with God, so there were broken relationships socially. Within the social relationships of people, there was havoc in society because there was breakdown spiritually. It just was showing up in society. He says, I will return.
Elijah's job will be calling men back to their rightful place. Returning the hearts of the of the fathers to the children. Why must men be called back to their rightful place? Because the blessing flows through you. And I know many of you have never been blessed, so you don't even know that there's supposed to be a blessing you pass down, and you don't know what that blessing is or how to pass that blessing down because nobody told you you have a glorious future.
Nobody told you you were somebody special. Nobody told you you don't have to demonstrate your manhood in illegitimate means. Nobody told you. So, you don't know how to pass it on.
So, you're just kind of learning as you go. But there is a desperate need today for men to be called back. To a biblical definition of not maleness but of manhood. He says, And I will return the fathers and their hearts back to their children because we have a generation of fathers who have no heart for their children. That's why they don't pay child support.
They don't show up and visit. They don't know how many they have. Because they don't have a heart. For the children that they sire, they could care less. And so the courts are filled trying to make fathers pay who don't have a heart.
He says, but when Elisha comes, when God's message comes, it will return the heart of the fathers to the children. And when the heart of the fathers, I love this, is restored to the children, he says, then the heart of the children will be restored back to the fathers. We have a generation of women, some of them are in here, who hate men. Because they've been used by men, abused by men, messed over by men.
So they don't think much. When they describe men, they have another synonym for a dog. Kimbles and bits, bow wow. Because their view of man is to be used, abused, messed over, and then trashed. But he says, if the hearts of the father, through the message of God, is changing the hearts of the fathers, then the children will begin to respond.
They did this nature special. on this herd of Young bull elephants, young male elephants. who were running wild. They were tearing over trees. They were fighting each other.
They were creating a havoc in this environment. They were knocking over the huts where the natives were living. I mean, these were bull elephants, male elephants gone wild. And they were trying to figure out what is going on with this herd of bull elephants until they noticed something. There were no adult males.
in the herd. They were all like teenage elephants crazy. Teenage elephants that had lost their natural mind. They were just going crazy, but there were no male bull elephants in there. The reason there were no male bull elephants is that poachers had come in and killed all of the male elephants to get the ivory.
So, in order to get the ivory, they killed the male elephants.
So, there were no male elephants.
So, the young teenage bull elephants went wild.
So they flew in some male bull adult elephants and dropped them into the herd. They wanted to see what would happen and drop them into the madness. Of teenage bull elephants gone crazy. When these male bull elephants were dropped into the midst of the chaos. They began flapping their ears.
They would raise their trunk. They would make these sounds. Then they would flap their ears faster. Raise their trunk and make these sounds, and they would flap their ears faster. After a few days of flapping their heads.
Raising their trunk and making these weird sounds. The teenage bull elephants calm down. The teenage bull elephants stopped being wild. The teenage bull elephants got a little decent and in order. Why?
Because there was a big bull now calling the shots. As long as the teenage bull elephants were calling their own shots. You had bad gangs of elephants who were hanging around. You had elephants that have gone crazy with no discipline. But when they dropped in the adult bull elephants and they flapped their ears.
And raised their trunk and gave the sound it was calling for order, or else you have to deal with us. That's because there are no bull elephants in their midst. We need a generation of bull elephants, real men, who flap their ears and raise their trunk and sound out the truth of what a man really is to calm these fools down who don't know how to act because they've never seen a bull elephant in their midst. We need some bull elephants out here. who are man enough to say, as for me in my house.
You don't talk to women that way. You don't talk to your mother that way. You open the door, you pull out the chair, you learn how to be respectful, and you learn how to have dignity and response. I need some bulls. Fathers whose hearts are restored to the children.
That's why I consider, I call it my legacy, what we're trying to do in these schools, because that's our future. That's off. If somebody doesn't get to these kids, you have, you don't understand. In some of these schools, 50% of the kids are dropping out. You understand when a teenager drops out before he has a high school diploma?
You know what that means? That means poverty.
Okay, that means probably drugs, that means crime, that means more prisons, more jails, more taxes. They go on and on. Do you understand? When a kid doesn't even have a high school diploma, he doesn't have a legal option, most of them. And unless these kids are told to stay in school and be responsible and act a whole nother way.
But I've seen, I've seen what bull elephants can do. The former principal called me up and he said, Look, we got to get gangs going crazy over here, and it's causing havoc. He says, Anything church can do? I said, Okay, you bring all the men into the auditorium. All the boys into the auditorium.
So he shut down the classes, put all the boys into the auditorium. And I walked over there with 25 men. I got 25 men from the church. We walked over there and we lined the aisles of the auditorium. We lined the aisles of the auditorium.
First of all, you could tell that most of those boys hadn't seen that many men in one place at one time.
So then we got 25 men lining the aisle, and they're not, they don't have their pants hanging around their ankles. They were suits and ties, and they're standing up there, dignified, and looking like they made some sense. I talked about what it means to be a man, what it means to be responsible. Whenever God started talking, he says, Don't you hear somebody talking up there? See, it was another man that said, I had 25 bulls in the midst of this chaos.
He says, After that one meeting, we only went over there one time. After that one meeting, gang activity stopped. Why? Because they had a look of what it looks like when men are in their midst. Our kids need to see men in their midst who love God and who love them.
It says, I will return the heart. It just won't be external activity, it'll be an internal heart. Internal care, internal support. He says I return the hearts of the father to the children.
so that I will not come. and smite the land with a curse. He says, there's a bad day coming. But it doesn't have to come. Yeah.
If I can get people to listen to Elisha. the messenger to take you back to the covenant. Then he says, then I will not come. and destroy the land. Things are bad.
40% of all children are growing up without a father. 70% in the minority community, but 40% of all children.
So it's climbing. With the divorce rate, it's climbing. With teenage pregnancies, it's climbing. And the price tag. What some of these kids are doing now.
You wouldn't even have thought about years ago. But it's a curse being passed down. And societal colds have now become cultural pneumonia. as we see the onslaught of deterioration. But if God can raise a generation of men, real men, not just males.
Of fathers who return, you say, but I've already messed up. I got, you know, I've sired kids I haven't taken care of. I've messed up. I've, you know, and maybe you didn't even have a father.
Well, then you know what you need? You need to be blessed. Because a blessing talks about your future. A blessing talks about where God wants you to be, where God is going to take you if you allow Him. You need to be blessed.
Dr. Tony Evans. showing how God specializes in turning failures into faithful fathers.
Now, if you gathered some helpful information in today's lesson, I want you to know that there's more waiting in Tony's complete series called Parenting on Purpose. This two-volume collection contains thirteen full-length messages, packed with biblical insight and practical encouragement for parents and grandparents alike. And for just a few more days now, when you make a donation and request the series, we'll include a complimentary bonus, Tony's popular book, Raising Kingdom Kids. Together, these resources can help you build a stronger spiritual legacy for the people you love most. Visit TonyEvans.org today to learn more.
or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members assist you. That's 1-800-800-3222. The Bible says God is eager to give His people wisdom. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans talks about why so few of us take him up on that offer.
It's a look at how God can equip us to make better decisions. I hope he'll join us.
