In this message, Benji Grant challenges us as men to consider the most important vocation we could pursue: giving our lives and time to raise up a godly offspring. This may mean a radical change of lifestyle or even willingness to give up what we might consider a normal job.
Though initially caught up in his own vocation and sports, Benji felt God’s call to forsake these things for a higher vision—the vision of a godly home and family.
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(00:03) When the realization came to me that I would be here preaching on the home without my family, I felt like that would possibly be a contradiction and that it would possibly detract from the message. But now I think a little different. I think if we take a father away from his family for three days, then have him preach on the home, it might be more powerful.
(00:32) And so I’m excited about going home this later on today and seeing my family again. Me and my wife have nine children. We just recently had our ninth child and the Lord has been doing some amazing things over the years. I can probably say this along with most of you older people at least.
(00:59) I grew up without a close relationship with my father. I feel that I had a nice father. I’m sorry. I feel that I have a nice father. But my father didn’t really know how to love me. He didn’t really know how to love us children. And I don’t fault him for that. I don’t hold anything against him for that.
(01:26) But it just communication and things like I love you and hugs and emotion just wasn’t part of my childhood. And even with my parents, just I often tell people that it wasn’t until I came into the the plain churches, the Anabaptist people, that I saw marriages that that were amazingly surprising to me.
(01:47) Men that love their wives and and vice versa. It was something new to me, just not something that I was used to. And I can remember when I was young, I remember thinking I remember thinking this that when I’m a father, when I am a husband, I want to be a better father than my father was to me.
(02:09) Now, I’m sure that that’s a pretty easy thing to say, but I remember saying I remember thinking that that that was my that was my goal. I want to be better than what my father was to me. Well, that time came when I was 23 years old and still living a very sinful life that I that I did get married, a very selfish life. My life was all about myself and sports and and the party that went with it. And here it comes at 28 years old.
(02:30) I have two little children, a 2-year-old and a six-month-old, a son and a little girl. And my Sunday mornings, for as long as I could have remembered, my Sunday mornings consisted or my Sundays, the entire day consisted of of recovery. It was a day of recovery from a hard weekend. And most Sundays, I would only visit two places. That was the couch and the restroom.
(02:55) We’d put football on and watch football all day and usually be so sick that I couldn’t even think about doing something. Well, there’s a there was a Sunday morning that that I clearly can remember and I hope I don’t ever lose this memory, but I can remember being on that couch. It was an Ohio State Buckeyes red couch and I was laying on there watching football and Logan, my two-year-old, had a hold of my arm, was trying to pull me off the couch.
(03:22) Daddy, daddy. And I can remember thinking right then that I am way worse than my father ever was. Way worse. And as I watched my life and how it was how it was coming together and realizing the responsibility that I had with my wife and my children and how I was blowing it, it was all about me. the weekends we took our children to our in-laws or to my parents and off we went.
(04:01) But it was about that time that I started to hate it. I started to hate the fact that I was a terrible father. I started to hate the fact that I knew that my life was not going to turn out. I hated the bondage that I was in and I wanted freed from it. And I started to ask questions. It was soon after that morning that I started taking my family to church, hoping to find something that would change the dilemma that I was in.
(04:30) And through an amazing work of God, there was a time where I was going to Ohio State to watch a basketball game and there was some faithful people there. There were some fa faithful Anabaptist men. To me, they looked Amish. But there’s men in front of this stadium preaching the gospel. And I had been going to church. I’ve been talking to my pastor. I’ve been trying to figure things out. But I never could get an answer of how I can solve my problem.
(05:01) It seemed like the things that I was addicted to, the things that I was craving were also the things that everybody in church was was dealing with. I knew that I worshiped Ohio State. I knew I worshiped sports. I knew it was a big issue. But it was also the same issue that was going on in my church.
(05:18) I can remember sitting in church one Sunday morning and between the the worship service and the sermon the the the big screen up here had Ohio State football players on it and just thinking how is this you know the very thing I’m trying to be freed from that I’m asking questions about is the very thing that the church here is supporting. But that day when I was walking into the shot and sign standard there in Columbus Ohio on the banks of the tangi river and the gospel was being preached and I laid my hands on a track about an hour and a half later in the middle of that
(05:43) stadium And it explained about repentance. It explained about the trouble that I was in and what I needed to do to be free and the commitment that I needed to make. It talked about being born again. And that night I was born again.
(05:59) I remember getting home late and walking into my bedroom where my wife was and just melting there and saying, “Honey, I’m saved. I’m born again.” But, you know, I had a lot of things to work through there, a lot of questions to have. I would ask questions like, “How much sports is too much?” I would I would ask God about it.
(06:19) We would have Bible studies and try to figure out what can we do and what can we not do? If sports just isn’t my idol, if it isn’t my all, if God is number one, can sports be number two? Questions like that. What do you do with television? What do you do with movies? What do you do with social drinking? What do you do with all these things? And so, we had a lot of things to work through.
(06:37) Am I allowed to go golfing? Does God want me to golf? What about trick-or-treating? And over the next few years, we had a lot of those things to to work through. maybe not even a few years like probably the next six or seven months there was a lot of struggling trying to figure out what God wanted and when we’re talking about the power of God we’re talking about what God can do as we just heard that his grace is sufficient there was a morning where just like every other morning I got up and was getting ready to go to work and I have a 45-minute drive to work and a package had came in the mail the day prior and in that package was a CD and my wife would must have opened it because I was going to work that next
(07:10) morning I just saw this CD that was laying on the on the place the the the catch all in our kitchen, you could say. And I just grabbed the CD and I headed to work and I put it in the CD player and I noticed that on the CD it just said these words, “Where are the men?” by a man named Denny Kenaston, who I’d never heard of.
(07:32) And going to work, I’ll just say that I was the the message reached a a deep spot in my heart. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I was hearing somebody that was that was lifting the standard to a place that I hadn’t heard of yet. Somebody that I could tell was fully committed, allin, not making excuses, not justifying.
(07:55) And it was a place that I knew that I knew that I needed to go. And when I got to work and got in my office, obviously the first thing I did was go on my computer and and look up this Denny Kenaston. Who is this man? What is this man about? And it wasn’t long that I had a big series coming in the mail called The Godly Home.
(08:17) And I devoured that series to and from work, just soaking it in. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like the theme of of his messages, the theme of those messages was about the hearts being turned toward the children. out of Malachi and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers and the picture that I was getting was a very clear picture and it was something that I wanted desperately and every seemed like every day that I came home I had something new to tell my family something new to tell my wife I can remember when we had our first
(08:54) family devotion and it was a very awkward time I didn’t know how to really do it I just had these two little children and a wife that had probably never sang in her life outside of country songs or things that were carnal and I had ordered some some song books. And so I had these song books and I got my children around around and I remember looking through this song book and not sure what to do with this.
(09:15) What do I do with this? But I remember the page falling open to a song that was titled The Old Rugged Cross. And I knew that song from somehow I knew that song maybe from when I was a child. And here we sat these four people and sang that song together. Our first family devotion. You know, I got the picture there in this this vision for a godly home.
(09:41) I got the picture that you have a man that’s got a lot of things going on and we all know how this looks. Maybe he’s maybe he’s talking to people. He’s directing something and a child is coming and tugging on his pants saying, “Daddy, daddy.” And a lot of times it’s easy just to kind of push the child away.
(09:57) But I could I was getting this vision from this from this whole series and from what what was being preached that it was no longer going to happen. But it was fathers that were going to turn turn their heads to their children and get on their knees and and say, “What can I do for you, son?” Hearts that were being turned away from selfish desires to a vision for homes. It didn’t seem to take long for the Anabaptist people to to find me.
(10:18) And they started showing up to our house and we started visiting places and I started realizing that this was a revival that had happened to a lot of people. And men were hanging up their tool belts and coming home and working with their families, eating three meals with their children, getting up and having devotions, going off to work in the backyard, the farm, the garden, the shop with children tagging along, just excited to be with daddy.
(10:50) So me and my wife left our careers and we started farming and we didn’t know a thing about it. We didn’t know a thing about cattle. We didn’t know a thing about plants. We didn’t know a thing about a lot. But I knew that I was serving a big God and I knew that I was going to be doing it with my children, with my wife. We’re in this together.
(11:13) My wife had owned a dog grooming business. She’d owned it ever since she graduated. She had done very well with it. It was her gift to groom dogs. And so she had somebody come in and take it all over. And we came together as a family and started working together. And I can remember the time that we were walking through a nursing home visiting somebody.
(11:33) And the phone call came from this person that says that she’s leaving. She’s not going to work here anymore. She needs a job that offers insurance. And we didn’t know what to do. And I looked at my wife and I says, “We made a commitment that we are going to stay together as a family.” And so here we were, a family grooming dogs.
(11:50) Probably doesn’t sound much like many people’s testimonies, but I was excited to be doing it with my children, my wife. I was excited about what God was doing and not just in our own lives, but what he was doing all around. And I believe that that that the huge movement that happened 40 plus years ago, it it was it was motivated by this very thing.
(12:15) Hearts of fathers and mothers being turned toward their children in a beautiful picture. Families that were excited, fathers and mothers that were excited about having their quivers full. large families, large families, as we just sang, gathered around the these large tables singing and reading the Bible together.
(12:38) Kind of the mantra was Deuteronomy 6 here. O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.
(12:55) And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt walk talk of them, when thou sitest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, when thou riseest up, and 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 the house, and on the gates.
(13:10) ” What an encouragement that everybody was feeling the same vision. I remember visiting a family and they they still looked just as as as they always had and I think they had 12 or 13 children and when I pulled up to the house for the first time they had a house with a big huge front porch maybe 50 foot long and above that porch in huge letters it says as for me in my house we will serve the Lord.
(13:33) Men who had their hearts turned away from their own passions and desires and had their hearts turned toward their children. And God started to work in that way in our own life. And it was such a beautiful thing. You go into people’s houses and there’s Bible verses all over the walls of the homes. Families, families that were on fire for God.
(13:55) And you got the picture of fathers that are sitting in the middle of a bunch of little children all gathered around singing, “Building up the temple, building up the temple.” And people were leaving their lives of sins because they were attracted to this beautiful vision of what God was wanting to do to the homes. And people were excited about the future. People were excited about the next generation. People were excited about what the church is going to look like.
(14:20) Families taking walks together, fathers listening to their children, caring for their children, spending time with their children, large gardens. No more youth groups. People were rejoicing. Their children wanted to spend time with mommy and daddy, not just with their friends. Whole families that were going out into the streets preaching the gospel, passing out tracks, families finding a street corner to sing songs.
(14:59) I was talking with a family that experienced this. And as they left their setting with revival in their hearts and their hearts turned toward God and toward their children and years later when they go back to visit their family and they have all these different family members, all these brothers and sisters with their families in this big room maybe having some type of meal together and he’s reminded of what the Lord has delivered him from because right after supper 16 years old and up all get up and leave.
(15:38) He looks at his family, looks at all his children who are excited to be there with mom and dad. It was a vision that took hold and spread very rapidly. The godly home, an amazing thing. But as the title says, dear brothers and sisters, I feel we’re losing that vision. And I’m sorry that that sounds negative.
(16:21) I know it’s not the heart, but if we look at that picture, and maybe maybe you’ve been burned by some of those things, and a lot of things were probably done wrong back then. And I can think of one of them. Maybe it was the fathers that were that were claiming that high priest of the home, that authority, and they were going to they were going to make their family do just what they said. They were going to command their home.
(16:44) And they didn’t do it with that gentle love that we’re talking about. They didn’t do that with that heart broken before their children, walking through the gardens, in the woods, teaching them as they go. And instead, they commanded and they directed and they demanded obedience.
(17:01) And maybe somebody here, maybe there’s families here, maybe there’s young people here that are reacting to that. And I just plead that we don’t lose the vision of the godly home because of some hard fathers that didn’t agree with submission and brotherhood. Because some of some hard fathers that decided to take that that whole movement and go off on their own.
(17:24) And maybe they bounce from house church to house church trying to find somewhere where they can have a little control. We can’t let those kind of things pull us away from that beautiful vision of hearts of fathers turned toward their children. I see the youth are going back to grouping up. It’s all about their sports and their volleyball. It’s all about their look. It’s all about their reputation.
(17:51) And it becomes more about their friends again. And the whole thing seems to be circling back around. And it breaks my heart because this is a real thing, dear people. This is a real thing. And when when people look at you as father and mother and they look at your children and they see something completely different, you lose your testimony, you lose that power in other people’s lives.
(18:19) Years back, I was visiting an Anabaptist dairy farm. It was early in the morning and I pulled into this farm and there was a beautiful picture that lay before me. It was a large farmhouse with a large front porch. There was dairy cattle grazing on the hillside. And when I sat there in my car and looked at that, I could just picture the picture that Denny Kenaston spoke about in the godly home about his trip to that farm in Canada.
(18:46) I could just envision it. I could almost hear the children laughing, the mother putting the clothes on the line, the father and his children bringing in the cows. After the work was done, they all gather on the front porch and sing some songs together. And the father gets out his Bible and reads to the children. And the children sit there and soak it in.
(19:12) Living the simple life, a life is content. Content with the security of the home. Content with the security of the brotherhood. Content in in the things that are going on around. I could picture the milk truck pulling in to pick up the milk and the children running to the truck as Denny shared it there all excited about this visitor coming to the farm and one of them jumps up on the truck and slips a gospel track through the window.
(19:41) I can picture visitors going by and and being welcomed into the house for for lunch and for devotions. This is the vision. This is the picture that put that vision in my heart years ago. And as I was waiting there in my vehicle at that farm, I was excited to see an older man walking toward my vehicle. And I was excited because I wanted to talk to this man. I’m a man that wants to know all I can about raising children. I want all the tips I can get.
(20:19) Especially then when when I was dealing with a lot of young children. feeling extremely inexperienced and I still feel that way today. But God is able. But as I as I was excited about this, I could see that this man was walking to me and he didn’t seem to have that valiant step in his walk. He seemed to be a man that was a bit burdened. And I got out of my vehicle and I start to talk to him about his farm and he very quickly just with his head down, he says, “We just sold the farm.
(20:53) He had the same vision. He had the same vision. But as his children got older, the people that were going to church with his family, his children’s friends had lost the vision. They had lost this vision. You know, it was just too hard. The mornings were too early. The pay wasn’t good enough. and they put away their shovels, closed down their milking parlors, and picked up picked back up the tool belts and headed back into the city, leaving early in the morning and not getting home till late at night.
(21:41) So, here is this picture of this man that’s got a vision for a godly home. He’s he’s the Lord has blessed him with all these provisions to make it happen, but the pull from the church that he’s in is too heavy. It’s too strong. And all the children’s friends are saying things like, “Why do you have to get up so early? Why don’t you come over to our place tonight? We got this going on or that going on.
(22:10) You’re never going to afford your own farm. All their friends had the latest toys, the latest drones and iPads and new trucks, things that this family probably couldn’t afford. And instead of gathering around the large table for supper and reading the Bible together, they were off to the latest steakouses.
(22:35) And it wasn’t long that the entire church started feeling bad for this family. And mothers and fathers were calling the children and inviting them out to supper. And when the children married, keeping the family farm going was not even an option. Keeping the simple life was not even an option. The thrill level had gotten too high. And there was a death of a vision.
(23:11) And my cry here this morning is, are we going to let it go that quick? Are we going to let it go? And maybe for you, it’s just one generation and letting it go. Children want to be led. Children want security. In Proverbs, it says, “Train up a child in the way he should go. When he was old, he will not depart from it.
(23:43) ” Do we still use that as a promise? Do we still take that verse is what it says there that it’s our responsibility to train up our children? It’s our responsibility to give our children that beautiful vision and direction for the rest of their life. Why would they want to leave it? Or as we start to get pulled away from our homes, we don’t know when the last time we ate lunch with our children. We don’t know when the last time we maybe even corrected them. It’s mom’s job now.
(24:08) we start to use that verse and pull back a little bit. After all, every child has to make a choice. We did the best we could. The heart is turned to the children, broken men and women that are desiring to pull their families together, that are desiring to have relationships with their families that are going to last for all of eternity. humble fathers.
(24:53) Fathers that not only view themselves as as being the teacher in the home, not only seeing themselves as a leader of the home, but also seeing themselves as a servant of the home. It’s too often the story I meet an older man and after conversing for some time, I ask the question, “How is your family?” And it’s usually the response, “It didn’t turn out like I thought it would.” Over and over and over again, we see a picture where fathers and mothers have let down the guard. They left up windows open and the world came in and stole the family.
(25:23) And now here they sit, 60, 70, 80 years old and it looks like all that they were working for is in shambles. 1 Corinthians 3, we see again large generation gaps between the parents and the children. And I’m telling you here this morning, this is a major problem, brothers and sisters. It’s a major problem.
(25:46) I’m not sure how how long this started happening, but it’s a different picture. I had a man come up to me one time and he was in the community where this revival was going on and he was observing and and years later he came to me and he says, “You know, I remember when this whole thing was going on, this charity movement he called it. And I remember going by this church house and this the whole parking lot was full of big 15 passenger vans. And he started to chuckle. He said, “These vans look like they were on their last leg.
(26:20) They were rusted through. And these vans would pull into this church yard and and all the all these children would start piling out of these vans. All these happy children singing songs. Parents that were excited to go into church.” And he looked at me and he says, “I don’t see it anymore.
(26:39) Benji seemed like now that same parking lot is filled up with the latest SUVs, the latest models of vehicles. Is it a fading vision in your fellowship? Is it a fading vision in your heart? Are we letting go of the very thing that caused so much of a stir in our communities 40 years ago? parents that dress their children differently than they dress.
(27:11) And I’m sorry, but I have such a hard time with it because it doesn’t make sense to me. And the reason it doesn’t make sense to me is because I have children and my children want to dress like I dress. My daughters want to dress like their mother. My little children have no desire to go out and do something different. They want to be just like their papa, just like their mama.
(27:38) Their daddy’s their hero. They love their mother. Why are they wanting to do something different? Why are they wanting to to take a trend away from that beautiful security that they love in the home? And it shows it is because the father’s hearts are turning back away. It’s just the fruit of it.
(28:02) Dear people, at 16 years old that the eye doctor said that my son needed glasses and I can remember I also needed a new pair of glasses. We went in together and it’s always a difficult thing for me to get glasses. You go into a into a room where there seems to be thousands of pairs of glasses covering a whole wall.
(28:28) Why is it that it’s hard to find one pair? And the reason is is because people are obviously using the using glasses as their stylish point. They’re wanting to be noticed by their glasses. And I understand that’s how the world works. I used to be in the world. I understand it. But my thought came to me, this is going to be the first time. This is going to be the first time that my 16-year-old is going to stand before that wall.
(28:50) What’s he going to choose? Is he going to have the same burden that I have? And I remember going into this into this eye doctor thinking these things. Lord, where are we at? And as we walked into that wall there, I noticed that my son wasn’t even looking at any glasses. said, “Logan, you got to you need to find a pair of glasses.” He says, “Dad, I’ll just take whatever you choose.
(29:23) ” Do we have that vision with our children? Is that what’s going on in our homes? Are we willing to let it go that quick? I’m not here to try to preach a condemning message. It’s a cry from my heart, seeing something so beautiful falling apart. And I know it isn’t the case in every place here. I know it isn’t the case in every home. I’m not making a blanket statement here saying that we all have fallen away from this.
(29:48) But we see it all around us. And it hasn’t been that long. What will the next 10 years be? What will the what will the future hold? And I understand the plea is but our children are not Christians. Why do we expect them to dress like that? It’s not about that. It’s because they want to. They want to, they’re pure in their hearts and they want to be like mommy and daddy.
(30:23) Have we given up on God in this? Father, is it your responsibility? Where are you at? Do we ever look out into the future and see where this is going to take us? It reminds me of two situations with two very, very old men. One of them was in a nursing home. I happened to come across him years ago and I made a commitment that I wanted to visit him once a week.
(30:58) So, I would go into this nursing home on my lunch hour once a week and I would sit there and talk to Bill and we talk about the Bible and he would always object to this and object to that and and try to bring up things that were contradicting and I would just try to care for Bill there as an old man laying there in his bed.
(31:15) And one day I remember going into the nursing home like I normally did and his bed was made. There was nobody laying there and I kind of got a little struck and I went ran up to a nurse and I said, “Where’s Bill at?” And the nurse looked at me and says, “I’m sorry, Benji. I’m sorry, but we can’t tell you. I can’t disclose that information.
(31:31) ” And it was a confusing thing to me. Why couldn’t you disclose the information? So, as I was leaving the nursing home, a tearyeyed nurse ran up to me and says, “Go to the county hospital, Benji, and you need to go quick.” So, I drove to this hospital and I walked in there and asked for Bill. They told me what room he’s in and what floor he was in.
(31:49) And I went up to that floor and as the elevator opened, I seen there was a room and there was a doctor standing at the room at the doorway. And right as I walked out of the elevator, this doctor came walking up to me and says, “Are you Bill’s family?” And I said, “No, I’m just a friend.” And he got real serious. He says, “Bill’s going to die any moment, and nobody has come to see him.
(32:11) We don’t know who to call. And I had to think of that that the ending into a life. And so I did. I stayed there with Bill and I held Bill and I talked to Bill and I pleaded with Bill and I prayed with Bill. And at Bill and at Bill’s funeral, there was maybe five or six people there. And I noticed that there was some children there. There were some that showed up after he had died.
(32:36) But do we not believe that the choices that we make in this very day, in this very hour, in this time of our life is going to affect that kind of ending for us? Are we absent to that thought? Do you think Bill planned it that way when he got married? There was another man. He was a quiet man, a very sincere man.
(33:00) I didn’t know him all that well, but I knew him enough to appreciate him. He had a heart for the lost, a heart for the gospel. And there was a scene that I was able to see that blessed me tremendously. And the scene was this older man laying on a bed struggling to breathe. The bed he was on was his deathbed.
(33:30) And he was in a room that was a fairly decent sized room. But the thing that struck my attention is is there was nowhere to stand in this room. This room was completely packed full. I don’t know if there was 70 or 80 or 90 people in this room, but it was his children. It was his grandchildren. It was his great grandchildren.
(33:47) They engulfed that room surrounding this bed where this man lay. And this these people were singing a beautiful song with all that they had, just filling the room with song. And as you looked at this man, you’ve seen the tears rolling down his cheeks. Is that how you want to die? Dear people, do you see yourself as a father, as a grandfather, as an old man with your family around you, with grandchildren that respect you that want to hear what you have to say about influence in their life? Do you want to have grandchildren
(34:22) coming up to you and jumping up on your lap? Grandpa, tell me about Jonah. Grandpa, tell me your testimony. If you want to have that vision where you actually can make an impact in your children’s life and your great grandchildren’s life, it’s got to start with decisions today. It’s got to start with making some different choices.
(34:47) And I know that there’s probably people in this room here today that say, “This looks way too big. This looks way too big.” But I just want to have pleaded with you. There’s never a time where it’s not where it’s too late to just repent and break your heart before your family. There’s never a time to gather your family around you and hit the reset button. There’s never a time too late for that.
(35:21) And if you want some hope in this life, in this situation, if you don’t want this to be a dark, dismal message, just think of that. There’s never a time too late that you can’t hit the reset button. Maybe take your family off to a cabin somewhere or go camping and get your family around you, fathers, and repent before your family that you’ve made some choices that are now bearing some fruit that you don’t want. You want to change some things. you maybe you have 16 year olds and 15 year olds and 12 year olds
(35:48) or 18 year olds and just remember that children children desire a relationship with their parents more than any other relationship. It’s just the truth. But they go to the other relationships because they’re more satisfying. The hearts need to be turned back toward the children. Is God big enough? When we were sent on the church plant there to Dayton, we sold our farm, our farm store where we worked together as a family, was able to interact with the community, a beautiful thing. And we when we moved,
(36:40) we didn’t have any land to buy. We we were renting a house. I wanted to with all my heart do something again with my children. The idea of getting up in the morning and I’m not trying to be critical here. I know there’s some here that don’t have any other option.
(37:06) I’m not trying to I’m not trying to be condemning here, but the idea of getting up and leaving my family all day long and coming home at the very end of the day and spending a few hours before bed just wasn’t an option for me. But I found myself in a situation where a brother needed help. But I went and asked some counsel for some other people. What do I do? He needs some help. They encouraged me just to submit to that. God has you in Dayton for a reason. Just submit to it and plug in. And so I did.
(37:31) And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my work. I enjoyed what I did. But one morning early in the morning out on my porch when it was still dark out, the Lord was speaking to me saying, “You’re turning away from your vision. You’re turning away from your vision.”
(37:53) And I remember getting my family around me that morning, the whole family there on the porch, and just repenting and saying, “I’m sorry. This isn’t what I had in mind. My wife’s crying. I’m coming back home. There’s never a time too late to break your heart before your family. Never a time where it’s where it’s too late to just be broken and say you made some mistakes. It reminds me It reminds me of the story that I say often, but it’s it’s a tremendously impactful account and I think it gives us a lot of hope here this morning.
(38:32) Young families that have young children, don’t give up on the vision of a godly home. Families that are dealing with teenagers that are already maybe getting a little taste of the youth culture and the movement there, don’t give up on it. And for those of you that maybe already have children that have left, don’t give up on God.
(39:07) But there was a man that had a vision similar to this and he ended up being a very strong man. We already talked about that. He was going to command his home and his children saw him as a hypocrite. I beg you all, this message is not at all promoting this. And when you are a hard father, when you’re a strong father, when you have a hard time saying you’re sorry, when you have a hard time repenting, when you have a hard time being wrong, when you always have all the answers, what ends up happening is as your children get older, they start to get bitter against you and they want nothing to do with you.
(39:43) And in this story, you probably have heard it before, but this story, there was there was a young two young men that had gotten a little bit older. They were in there 16, 17, 18 years old. And finally one morning, the oldest boy had enough of it and he left home. He hated his father. And his parents didn’t know where he went, but he ran away.
(40:08) And the father used this as an opportunity not to get upset with his son, not to get upset with what his son was going to do to his impre to his reputation or his image, but instead the father used this as an opportunity to fall upon his face and seek the Lord. The father took responsibility for the way that his children had turned out.
(40:34) He didn’t rely on the old excuses of boys will be boys or they’ll sew their wild oats. But instead, he hid his face and he repented and broke his heart before God. And God did amazing work in his life. And one night in the middle of the night, he got a phone call and the the voice on the other end of the phone simply just said, “Your son is in this so and so jail and he needs your help.
(41:00) So quickly, the father with his now broken heart, a heart for his son, longing to see his son again, for his son to come back home, the the father, he runs to the runs to the vehicle and flies to this precinct. He runs in there and asks to speak to his son. And the person at the counter said, “I’m sorry, your son’s not here.
(41:21) Your son has never been here tonight. We don’t know who your son is.” So he thought, well, maybe there was a maybe there was a mistake and maybe he met the the other jail, the other side of town. So he drove across town and the same thing happened there. And he drove to a nearing village and went there to their other police department and asked for his son. And once again, he’s not here.
(41:41) And he had about at that time he had realized kind of what was going on here. And this boy was very, very bitter to his father. And his friends had played this trick on his dad. And the boy told his friends that if you do this, it’s going to make my dad so mad if he drives all over the county looking for me. It’s going to make him so mad. But what he didn’t realized is his father had repented.
(42:04) His father had a broken heart. And as the father was driving home, he remembered that there was an old abandoned house in town. And he had heard that sometimes the young people use that old abandoned house to party and and hang out. So he made a decision that he was going to drive down that lane to that old house and just see if maybe his son was in that house.
(42:32) As he quietly walks up to the house, he looks in the window and there he sees it, his boy laying in the living room floor. So he quietly walks in as quiet as he could. He kneels down over his son, gives him a kiss on the cheek and goes home. And it wasn’t long that that boy, that wewarded son came back home.
(43:09) He came back home and he says, “You know, Dad, when I saw those lights coming down the lane, I was so scared of what you were going to do. I knew you were a terrible man. So, I act like I was sleeping, but when you came over and gave me that kiss and I felt that tear hit my cheek, I knew you were changed. I knew you were a different father.
(43:35) And I want to change, too. and I want to be a better son. You know, there’s a lot of things in life that we strive for. Maybe it’s a successful business. Maybe it’s having your debts paid off. Maybe it’s being a prominent figure in your church. But I can assure you, when you have your home in order all around you, when you have a heart toward your children, whether they’re old or young, whether they’re your children or your grandchildren or your great grandchildren.
(44:16) That is where there’s going to be satisfaction. That is where there’s going to be praise to God. And my cry here this morning is that we don’t give up so easily on the godly home. that we don’t give up to the go give in to the peer pressures just because everybody else is doing it. We feel like we have to let our children do it.
(44:41) We’ve heard a lot of testimonies this weekend. We heard about the power of God. Fathers and mothers, can we turn our hearts toward our children and renew that tremendous vision? God bless you.