Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Fifth Commandment Pt.3

Amen! Hallelujah! Amen! We returned not long ago from Baltimore, and we had a great, great time up there with the family, celebrating [Pastor] Jim’s tenth anniversary; it’s hard to believe. Some of the skits the young adults and the youth did were kind of a combination between a roast and just a real, real, affection, and love, and thankfulness, for their pastor. It was just a really good time; we enjoyed it. It is exciting to see what Father has done in those ten years: to see the fruit and the true family. What an exciting, exciting, thing to watch! Tomorrow, we are going to see more family; praise God! Most of you remember, of course, that the team is leaving tomorrow; so, just hold them up in prayer for safety in travel and in the warfare there. [There are] a lot of good things ahead. Those of you who have been [there] know the down side of it, and you know the up side of it; the up far outweighs the down; praise God. The change in environment, and the cultural [differences], and (of course) everybody enjoys chaos and odor and inconvenience and discomfort. But, other than that, it’s great, praise God, to see the fruit of the Spirit, and the family being added to. But, seriously: keep them lifted up, and it will be a great trip. They are excited, on that side; they cannot wait for you to come; praise God. As you know, we will be treated as royalty over there, and that is a blessing. Greer and I will be leaving the following week, and meeting for the pastors’ conference in Eldoret, then back again in Nairobi. [It will be a] good time. [We will] see if we can get Pastor Robbie out of Java House. Java House is the Cheesecake Factory of Nairobi. Rob has a bed in the back—he frequents that [establishment]. So, we are looking forward to the time we will have with [Pastor] Rob and the men there. Some very, very important issues are ahead there; and we just ask for your prayers for wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit at that time.

Let’s turn to 1 Peter. We want to pick up where we were this morning, as we take a look at the Fifth Commandment: to honor your father and mother, the first commandment with promise. We saw that the promise was that you might live long (as you read in the chapters this afternoon) and prosper. There is a promise of prosperity that goes along with the honoring of the covenant, because God is for us; and, if God is for us, nobody can be against us. We realize, then, that Father intends good for us, to cause us to be able to go in and occupy the land of promise, and to live in houses we did not build, to drink from wells we did not dig, and (of course) the admonition: "Once you get there, do not forget Who it is who has blessed you, Who has driven your enemies out before you, you did not do this in your own strength (Deuteronomy 6:10-13). I have called you; I have ordained you; I have placed you for the establishing of My Kingdom and My covenant." He says that He will not do it rapidly, because of the corpses, and the beasts [that] would come in and prey upon [them]. He said it would be little by little. But, as you read those chapters this afternoon in preparation for tonight, what, we did see, is God’s requirement of how we respond to the world’s wisdom, the world’s methods, and—most importantly—the world’s gods? We are going to take a look at that, this evening; but, prior to going over there, let’s look at 1 Peter: the passage we have referred to on a number of occasions to constantly reaffirm in our own minds, and in our own hearts, who we are, and God’s purposes for each of our lives. As covenant people, the whole duty of a covenant man is to fear God and (what?) keep His commandments—that is the whole duty of man, and that is what God expects of us (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Then, we saw, this morning, not only does he expect that of us as individuals, but He expects us to perpetuate it. I think this is interesting: Of all of the things He could have said about Abraham—Abraham was a man of character. Abraham’s character was seen in his faithfulness. What faithfulness this man had! Abraham: the father of (say it) faith. But he was not chosen because of his faith. His faith was the by-product of his understanding of the call on his life, of the cutting of the covenant, and of what God expected of him. I want to tell you something, beloved: You cannot take your child up that mountain, Mount Moriah, and raise that knife in your hand, preparing to cut the throat of your own child, based on anything you can study: You have to know God’s call on your life, and the eternal covenant that has been cut. It has to be a relationship; it has to be a knowledge of God, not a knowledge about God—knowing Him and His eternal purposes, not [just] knowing about Him. God could have said all of those things: "I chose him because he was a great man of faith." God, later, by His Spirit, calls him the father of our faith, for his diligence and obedience to come out of the land in which he had been raised, from all he had known as a young man—his culture and his natural relationships—as God called him to a place he did not know. But, that is not what He said; He said, "I did not call him because of that." We see many different aspects of his character: faithfulness, obedience, and faith. But He said, "I chose him because he would teach his children, and his children’s children." [That makes this a] pretty high priority, wouldn’t you say? It is the reason he was separated. It is the reason God infused him with that grace of faith. That came from Father. It was not innate within him, it was a gift of God; no man can boast in it. But, he was willing to do what God prepared him to do.

Who is this man, Abraham? The one of whom God said, "I chose him for this reason." He was a man, we know, in his own strength, who took things into his own hands, got into the flesh, and we all know what happened. In the flesh, Abraham produced (what?) Ishmael (Genesis 16). Ishmael then stood in opposition to the child of promise . Now, God made certain provisions for Ishmael—remember, this is pre-Law, but we still determine the heart of God and the wisdom of God—but one thing God made very clear: The child of the flesh is not [to be] raised in the same home as the child of the spirit (amen?); put him out! Listen to this; it is very interesting: it is one of those times when God said, "Listen to your wife." Come on, ladies; this is a good one. What was taking place here (as you remember) is that Ishmael was feeling his oats; and what was he doing in the presence of Isaac? He was vaunting himself, wasn’t he? He was putting himself off [as one] in a position of preeminence, of importance. And God made it very clear, that the one of the flesh will not be raised with the one of the covenant; period. It is a very clear principle; you can go study it; read it for yourself. As God is working the miracle in the life of Abraham to bring him to that place, now look who this man is: he is a man who put away the child of his own loins—the child of his flesh—to keep the covenant (Genesis 21:9-14). He was a man, then, capable of taking the child of covenant and offering him to God on the altar (Genesis 22:1-18). If we are going to fulfill the call of God on our lives, men, as priests of our homes, we have got to be willing to offer it all up to God. It is out of our hands, it is the wisdom of God, it is the commandment of God; you cannot add to it, and you cannot diminish it. Many times, it will cause nights of weeping, it will cause doubts, it will cause judgments of yourself—guilt—but the path is clear, and the mandate is clear: Are you going to be eligible, through obedience, to be a man of covenant or not? That is what it is all about. As I shared earlier: It is not about the child; it is about your relationship with God. We cannot expect our children to have commitment to God if we are not committed. How can you expect your child, Isaac, to ever wholly give his life to God, if you are not willing to give your life wholly to God and his life?

So, this is the whole [of what] we are learning through that Scripture passage, as we are watching Abraham. Isn’t it easier to watch Abraham do it? How many of you think it is easier to open this Book and watch Abraham do it, than to go through it yourself? And yet, how many of us want to be called men of faith, yet not have to be men who have [been] tried and put into the fire? So it is very important for us to understand God’s calling, and [His] purpose for choosing Abraham. In the cutting of that covenant—the Abrahamic covenant (and later the Mosaic covenant, and following that the Davidic covenant)—to see these men of God, as the different revelations of the purpose of God and the Kingdom of God are unfolded, in the midst of all of this, one thing is becoming clear: there are two kingdoms—the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. It is an absolute distinction of the uniqueness—or (another term we have talked about) the holiness—of our God. The Lord our God is (say it) one. We were reading that this morning; and we say that the oneness is not just the monotheistic aspect of God, but the absolute uniqueness of God. He is God alone; there are no other gods beside Him. In His revelation of Himself, He tells us, "I am a consuming fire, I am a jealous God. You will not have any other gods. I have called you to Myself, and I have separated you. If you defect—if you betray Me—I will kill you. That is the consequence; for, from the beginning, the soul that becomes independent of Me shall [say it] die" (Deuteronomy 4:24, Joshua 24:20, Ezekiel 33:13). It is the natural consequence; it is what [will] happen. Many of us say we would like to, somehow, delay it, at least. It is going to happen; if you are not serving God, you are going to die; period. If you die in that condition, you die forever, and there is no reconciliation. But, if we, as overseers—as priests—will die to our own flesh and our own emotions, and be willing to offer our lives up as living sacrifices, and intercede, and represent God, and apply the principles of God, then we can see, though the body be destroyed, the salvation of the soul. That is why God gave us these methods and this wisdom, which seems to be foolish to the natural mind.

That is enough review from this morning. First Peter, Chapter 2; let’s take a look at a couple of the Scriptures we have [referred] to on a couple of occasions. He makes an interesting distinction here. He talks about those of us (in verse 2) as newborn babes who are desiring the sincere milk of the Word of God. As we partake of the Word of God through obedience—not being hearers, but doers—we grow thereby, the Scripture says. And, if you have been one who has tasted that the Lord is gracious, then you will understand that you are the one to whom He comes as "a living stone, disallowed indeed of [the flesh], but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, [children,] as [living] stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." Now, get the picture: God is building a house; He is building a kingdom; He has made a choice of stones that are precious in His sight, and He has chosen to prepare us through the training of generation to generation, as Malachi says, to raise up and to prepare for ourselves and for the kingdom a (what?) holy seed (Malachi 2:15). That is what this is all about. He is talking about the building and the establishing of this kingdom, of His church, His body. He makes reference, of course, in verse 6, [to Isaiah 28:16]: "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded," will not be overcome, will not stumble or fail. "Unto you therefore which believe…," now I want to contrast the two kingdoms and the two philosophies, "Unto you therefore which believe [in the sincere revelation of the Word of God, to you who realize who He—the chief cornerstone of this separate, elite, Kingdom—is] He is precious: [now watch] but unto them which be disobedient…," We are going to talk about the commandment tonight. When things begin to get muddled, when things used to be clear in your thinking, but now, with the pressure on, and with choices of this magnitude—which you should have made earlier, but now, faced with the circumstances, and the emotions of it—you are not seeing very clearly, and you are forgetting who you are, and you are forgetting who He is "…But to them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient…" rebellious, self-willed. Then, he makes an interesting statement: "…whereunto also they were appointed." The sovereignty of God, Jesus, this rock of offense, we read of in Matthew 10:34; very clearly He said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but [say it] a sword." This sword is going to do something: what is He going to do to families? He said, "For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three" (Luke 12:52). His plan, His purpose, His desire, is that none perish; amen? God is merciful; God is loving; in His plan, and what He expects in our little kingdom, here—our community—[within] the broader kingdom of God, church of God, body of Christ, He has made provision that none would perish, and "The Lord is…not willing that any [in the world] should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). But we know that that is a little idealistic, isn’t it? Because, we see that those who are going to betray Him are going to be as the sands of the sea, following His millennial reign (Revelation 20:7-8). We see that, even within the homes, within the households, there are going to be those who depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, in the last days (1 Timothy 4:1).

Throughout the epistles, Paul talks about people who have come to the knowledge of God and [then], because of their love of the world and the world’s system, begin to fulfill all the lusts of the flesh in that list in Galatians 5:19-21. This was written to professed believers. He said, "Those that do these things contrary to their rearing, contrary to their training, contrary to the Ten Commandments, these people will not inherit the Kingdom of God." So, we realize that there are going to be those who have been raised in the camp, who are going to go outside the camp, and die outside the camp, and actually suffer eternal loss. Now, one of the things we need to understand, because of our being Americans and individualists, is that, so often, we lose sight of the fact that God speaks to a holy nation; He speaks to us as a whole, and what He expects of us [is] as a whole. Each of us, as individuals, makes choices that will either allow us to benefit from the blessings of God [or incur the curse]. Deuteronomy 28: Read through all the blessings and the curses. You will see that God said, "If you will keep My commandments, you will be blessed in your fields, and in your deeds, and everywhere you put your feet will prosper." "But," He said, "if you are not obedient, these curses will come upon you, and cursed will be the fruit of your womb." It’s interesting that He talks about all of the material things, yet He comes down to our children; and much of that is contingent upon our own personal commitment. As we look at these things, it is vitally important that we understand the broader perspective of who we are, and whom these promises belong to; they belong to a holy nation, a royal priesthood, as he goes on to say, here, in verse 9: "But ye [beloved] are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now [I like this next word: look at it; say it with me] the [not ‘a,’ the] people of God." You see, Israel was only a shadow, a type of what they would ultimately become, in this great kingdom of which you and I are citizens, this great building, in which you and I are living stones that make up the household of God, the dwelling place of God. We "…are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from [the world’s wisdom,] fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." Our minds are constantly being inundated: "Yea, hath God said…? Ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3:1-3). "Has God said…?" We have created this God of mercy, who is without justice. God is absolutely, totally (as we taught in our teaching a few years ago on the attributes of God), merciful, and absolutely, totally, just. His mercy requires justice; and His justice is administered in mercy.

So, we go back to Deuteronomy. Let’s look at those chapters where we left off this morning. We left off, if you will remember, in Chapter 4; and we had just talked about verse 4: "For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God." Verse 37 says, "And because He loved thy fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in His sight with His mighty power out of Egypt; to drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else." "The Lord our God is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). "Thou shalt keep therefore His statutes, [verse 40] and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever." His intention is for us to prosper, and for us to be victorious. We talked on Wednesday night, you remember, about what happens when we begin to compromise this, and when we begin to seek other gods. How much purposeful disobedience is allowed before our strength and our power is negated? We saw on Wednesday night the idolatry, the covetousness, of the hearts of Israel as they stole the glory of God. Now remember, God was going to give them the whole nation, but the first fruits belonged to the Lord. "Honour [Me] with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase" (Proverbs 3:9). That is why, He said, they could not keep anything for themselves out of Jericho; that belonged to the Lord. He said, "After Jericho, I am going to give you the spoil, but do not take My honor, and do not take my glory." We all know the story: Achan is moved [with covetousness] as he sees the wedge of gold, [the silver], and the Babylonish garments, so he hides them. We talked about it Wednesday night. They go up to Ai. They should have been victorious but, the next thing you know, they are turning their backs to the enemy and the enemy is driving them out. The Bible says our enemy is to come against us in one way and flee in seven; amen? (Deuteronomy 28:7) Yet they are fleeing from the little city, Ai; why? It is because there was sin in the camp. Why? It is because their own god—their own covetous spirit—was hidden in their midst. We are going to look at the need for us, as a people, to keep ourselves holy and pure, and at the [mistake] of thinking that your little sin, your little fleshly choices, will not affect the rest of us. God is dealing with a nation, a holy nation—His church. And, in community, as we are together, and we are worshipping, and we are serving God, and trying to fulfill the call on our lives, we are responsible—we are responsible, beloved—to lift up the hands that are hanging down, and to comfort the feeble-minded. Our allegiance, as we saw in Matthew 12, is not to our natural blood, but "my mother and my brothers are those who (what? Say it) do the will of God; that is whom I am related to, that is who my family is, that is whom my allegiance is to." Yet, many of us who profess to know God, and [say] we have surrendered all to Him, many of us still have [a stronger] allegiance to blood relatives—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children—than to the household of faith. We are talking about deceiving ourselves. We have seen, and we are going to see, as we go on in this, that God has given us a new family: "Those who do My will," Jesus said, "They are whom my commitment is to." Well, what about these who are blood relatives and close acquaintances? We saw that [situation], [on Wednesday,] in Deuteronomy 14, 17, and 21, didn’t we: "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’…But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death…" (Deuteronomy 13:6-11). We are going to continue to deal with this principle until the strongholds that have been established in the thought processes of many of us are pulled down. We begin to see clearly that it is really about the glory of God. We have almost, beloved, allowed our allegiance to the flesh, our nationalism, and our naturalism, to become, in many ways, idolatry in our own lives. But, like Abraham, we leave our natural [wisdom], and go into a land, not knowing exactly where we are going; it is a life of faith, it is a life of the Spirit, it is a life—as we see in the lives of Abraham and Moses—of the invisible (Hebrews 11:8, 24-30).

He says, "I want it to be good for you; that is My desire." So, then, we see the giving of the Ten Commandments in Chapter 5. I want to go past that part very quickly because there are two points that I want to at least get to tonight, before we finish. We see the Lord bringing the Ten Commandments, and in the first two commandments—"Thou shalt have no other gods," and "Thou shalt not make any graven images," —He makes reference again to this statement in verse 9 (look): "…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." That is powerful! Does the compromise stop, or does it [continue] for generations, and cause God to have to be an enemy? Do you want God to be an enemy to your children and your grandchildren? How are we going to represent Him? "I have called Abraham because he will teach his children and his children’s children to keep these statutes, that there is no other way to live" (Nehemiah 9:7, Genesis 18:19). This is who we are. We have left everything in the natural, and we become the children of faith—the children of light. There is nothing to hold to, back there. So, in the midst of this, He reminds us of His jealousy. We saw that He is a consuming fire, in the fourth chapter. Then, He makes this statement in verse 29. You remember; they had said, "‘[Go, Moses, get the word for us, and we shall do whatever the Lord says.] Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it.’ And the Lord heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the Lord said unto me, ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!’" The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mathew 26:41). So many of us have such good intentions, and then it comes to death to self, to the flesh, to making those decisions to offer up as living sacrifices that which is holy and acceptable unto God, which is our spiritual service (Romans 12:1).

He goes on in verse 33: "Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess." He keeps telling us, "I want to bless you, I want to prosper you, I want your days to be long and fruitful, but you have got to do it My way." Now, these are the commandments Chapter 6 starts off with: first of all, we have the Decalogue—the Ten Commandments; then, we have all the social laws. We won’t go into these right now, but Moses received all these different laws, which have to do with how we relate to one another, and what happens when we have conflict in the community, and how to take care of that—everything that pertains to interaction and social order, all outlined in the wisdom of God. In the mist of all that, He set up a system, too, and said, "Here is how it works: If there is a conflict, you go down to the elders, you go down to the priests; they will make a judgment; and, that settles it." In our civil courts, that doesn’t settle it, does it? You have the Court of Appeals. Did you know that in the Kingdom of God there is no court of appeal? When Dad makes a decision, there is no court of appeal; when the elders make a decision, there is no court of appeal. When there is a conflict between the people in the body of Christ, and the eldership speaks and says, "Here is the judgment as to how you [will] work things out, then there is no appeal to it; you do what the judgment of God is. Paul had to speak toward that later (didn’t he?), when he was speaking to the Corinthians, who were famous for their (what?)—what are they famous for? Oh, moving in the spirit. No, they are famous for their carnality. In the midst of all that, he had to deal with them, and tell them how to respond to one another, and tell them that you cannot go to civil courts with a brother; these things are all handled in the church, and the judgments are all handed down, and that is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). That is another whole teaching in and of itself, but you will see that it is the responsibility of the judges—the elders—within this community, whom God has set up as totally self-contained, absolutely distinct from anything the world sets up in their wisdom, in their methods, in their laws, in their perspective of justice. "That doesn’t seem fair." Don’t raise your hands, but I would say it would be very unlikely that there is more than a handful, if any, who have never judged God unfair at some time in their thoughts. "It just doesn’t seem right that God would require that, that God would do that." We have talked on sovereignty, just recently, that it does not seem right that the innocent suffer. Why should that child suffer? Why should that child have to suffer the consequences of the sin of the parent? Why, why, why, why, why? We want to apply our humanistic, finite, intelligence to the infinite wisdom of God, and all it does is generate more questions. But when we just do the Word of God, when we just obey, the grace and the faith are there to [empower us to] partake of the joy and the fruit of His presence, which bring peace and "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8).

So, He goes on, and He says this: "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 command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged." Let’s back up; here are these laws, and the purpose of the Law: The Law is good; the Law is holy; the Law is just. In this, the Church Age, the Law has not been done away with, but fulfilled. The Law is the declaration of the mercy of God; it reveals the mercy of God because the Law is the schoolmaster that leads us to (what, Galatians 3:24 says?) Christ. The reason we apply the Law is to get people to come to Jesus; the adolescent, the immature, the unlearned, and, yes, even the rebel, can be reconciled if they will hear the Law of God, if they will humble themselves to the Law of God. It can bring about reconciliation—a restoration to God. But, here is what the Law is supposed to do (look, verse 2): it should bring the fear of the Lord. "…I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that [if you will be obedient] thy days may be prolonged." Look at it, beloved; it is absolutely clear: the perpetuation. God, without any contradiction, expects this to become generational. The commandment is to you, to your son, to your son’s son: it is expected. God has no other consideration than a perpetuation of generations believing and doing the Word of God, and of our requiring it of them, [as commanded in] the New Testament passage [Ephesians 6:4] (and we will hear it quoted a couple more times as we are going through the study), that we are to teach them the Word of God, and train them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or, as He says it here (look at it, verse 7), "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children …" How many of us are diligent in letting our children know that they are special, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. "Don’t even look at the world; we are not of those people, we are unique. God has called us…" (and we will see it in a moment)—do you know what God has called us to do? You see, everything they are doing, we are to tear it down and destroy it! Amen. We are not to try to inherit what the world owns. Now, we are not talking about natural things, things that we say are innately evil in and of themselves; we are talking about the [spiritual], because God wants to give us richly all things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17); amen. "The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof" (Psalm 24:1). So, what is he saying? Is he saying that Cadillacs are evil? He is not saying, "Cadillacs are evil! We hate Cadillacs; we are going to destroy all Cadillacs." God does not care [whether] you drive a Cadillac or not. He will even let you drive a Lincoln (with the blue oval). What is He talking about? [He is talking about] the kingdom of the world—the spirit of the world; we oppose the reasons they have it, and the methods by which they obtained it. For me, there is only one acceptable source: it is the blessing of the Lord that has made me rich and adds no sorrow with it. That is what we teach our children. We do not get it by the arm of the flesh; we are not pursuing what the world is pursuing; we are seeking the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And if He chooses to let the blessings overtake us, then so be it; praise God! And, if not, then so be it. As the Apostle says: "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:" praise God! (Philippians 4:12).

"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house…" (Deuteronomy 6:7). Do you discuss these things? I know most of us have relationships with our children, and some communication; but, we are coming into a generation in which there is a whole separate [lifestyle]. People don’t talk anymore: people text-message. You know, this is all pretty good for [mere] information, but do you want to know something? There is no worse way to communicate to somebody than these short messages, whether they are e-mails or whatever. You can say something to me [that way], and, you know, the letter is harsh! You can write something to me, and I am thinking, "Wow! I didn’t know it was that big a deal!" And it wasn’t a big deal; it was just said very shortly and very distinctly, and now I am taking this as something urgent, something really harsh; whereas, if you and I had looked at each other’s faces and talked, you would have seen the expression on my face, you would have seen my body language. If all we want our children to do is memorize the Bible, sometimes that can be a little harsh; but what about when we sit down with them, and we introduce them to God, and they see the joy we have, and they see the peace in our lives when we communicate to them the graciousness of the Lord and the mercy of the Lord? What do you talk about with your [children]? Are they very aware that we are a peculiar people? We are not like the rest of that community out there, we do not serve their gods. "…and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." The Ten Commandments, what do you think? Some of you older kids, some of you high school kids, some of you young adults, you are going to have to undo some of this. I told [Pastor] Chuck, today, as we were driving to Baltimore, that my prayer, my heart’s desire, and I would to God, that our children in elementary and in the younger elementary—I am looking for a time when every child up there is absolutely, totally, brain-washed: that they have no affection for the world, no respect for the world, no enticement by the world, that their riches are in the eternal, that they understand that they are a precious people, the chosen people of God. We are the ones who are special, not the world; we are the ones of whom people should be saying, "How did you get that peace; how did you get that joy; how did you get that unity; how did you get that love, one for another?" Our treasure should be provoking them to jealousy. Oh, that our [children] would not have any of this garbage of mingled seed to contend with, [because we,] knowing who we are, boasting in our calling, and in our righteousness, and in our God, [are] so constantly putting this into them that they would see anybody who approaches them with another god or another philosophy as an enemy instantly, that they would sense that spirit as different, and realize what Peter said: "We are a peculiar people, separate, unique, precious."

He goes on in verse 8: "[You know what you need to do:] And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." How many of you have seen the Hassidic Jews? We cannot go back hundreds of years, but things have not changed for thousands of years with the Jews. Have you seen the Hassidic Jews with the funny little hats? They take them off, and they have this leather box on their heads. Has anybody seen that in person? It’s kind of cool, isn’t it? Also, they have these leather straps around their arms and, actually, on the backs of their hands are these little cubicles—little square leather cubicles. We have shared with you what these are. What is this frontlet to my eyes? Isn’t this kind of silly, really? In the natural, we don’t have to do that, but spiritually, we need to take the wisdom of it—the Word of God—ever before our eyes, a reminder right here [on my forehead]. What do I do? I pull that passage out, right here, the one that is right here on my forehead. I pull that passage out, and it says, "The Lord thy God is one Lord." So, I start every day knowing there are no alternatives. I know who I am: the apple of God’s eye, the treasure of His heart. The Scriptures are carved into the door posts of your house. This is talking about God being ever before us. How much emphasis do we put on the commandments of God—not moral living, not whether or not we have well-mannered children, but holy: separate to God. As he goes on in this passage, he tells us the necessity of constantly putting this into our children from the moment they can comprehend: We are different; we are unique; we are God’s people; we are not of the world. Then, what happens when they finally get old enough to make the decision to defy us, to defy our God, and to dishonor you as a parent? "What do you mean, dishonor?" I mean, I have spent 15 years telling you who God is, who we are, and what the truth is, and you are calling me an idiot, and a fool, and a liar, because you know better, that there is another way, that there is another god. Your understanding of God is tainted. "God is broader than that narrow path you have told me of for 15 years." At this moment, two kingdoms collide, and we choose who is on the Lord’s side. Tragically, for generations now in America, in fundamentalists homes, generation after generation, denomination after denomination, children have been chosen over God; the world’s approval and acceptance of our choices [has been] bowed to and reverenced more than the Word of God, to where making a simple, obvious, choice to obey is seen as harsh, insane, unrealistic. And we think we are not vexed by this world we live in, when the simplest thing for any of us to do is to take any one of these moments of conflict, and just absolutely, with clarity, know what God says to do, and do it. How vexed are we? How much has this secret power of lawlessness (spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2:7), or the spirit of antichrist, or antinomianism, affected us? There is no lawless Christianity, Jesus fulfilled the law.

So, as Moses is bringing the Ten Commandments, and the heart of God to the people, they said, "Go, hear what God says, come and tell us, and we will do it" (Deuteronomy 5:27). That is like so many of us: "Just tell us what the Word says, and I will decide whether I want to do it or not; I have that right." No, you don’t. If you are going to live long, and if you are going to prosper, then you are going to do it. Now, he says, "I am going to give you the blessings of the Lord that I promised to your father Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. I have brought you out of Egypt, and I am going to bring you into a good land." "Then beware [verse 12] lest thou forget the Lord... Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you. Ye shall diligently [verse 17] keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers. To cast out all thine enemies from before thee as the Lord hath spoken. And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, ‘What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you [what is this all about]?’ Then thou shalt say unto thy son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt.’" Tragically, what happens when you lose sight of what we are without Jesus, is that we fall back into that fallacy of humanism that thinks there is something good in man: "Well, you know, they’re not that bad; they want to do right." "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth [say it] no good thing" (Romans 7:18). If we are not in the Spirit, then there is no good thing happening in us. All natural seduction and compromise is going to have no affect, because no one can come to the Lord initially, or be returned to the Lord, if Father is not drawing them by His Spirit. He will not draw them [using] humanistic methods. The Holy Spirit does one thing: He confirms the Word that was spoken (amen); nothing else is going to work. If you are not applying the Word, nothing you do will work. In fact, God will become your enemy, and God will oppose your methods. We will see that as we go on in the Scriptures.

So, what are we doing? We are sitting here, as a people, trying to gain again, in our own thinking—and for those of you who are parents of some of these younger people, the understanding of what Father requires of you—the course that is to be set, and the absolute, absolute [refusal to] compromise with your flesh or the world’s wisdom, [which is] fellowship with the kingdom of darkness. He said he brought us out of Egypt—Egypt being what? [It is] a type of the flesh, or sin, or the world—"And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land [a land of Spirit, a land of revelation of the Word of God] which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good…" Do you want good for your [children]? Do you want good for your house? Then you had better teach them the fear of the Lord. "…That he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us."

We won’t go into it this evening, but just one reference to it in closing: Read through the rest of this chapter, if you get a chance, in the next day or so. I want you to see how we relate to the world. Verse 2 of this chapter: We smite them, we destroy them, we make no covenant with them, and we show now mercy unto them. "Them" who? They (verse 4) who "…turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods: [now, watch: this is what we are going to end with for this evening] so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly." Our God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. He makes very clear how we respond to idolatry, and to the enemies of His household. We want God to be for us, not against us.

Father, we thank You, tonight, for Your Word. I ask that You would help us, tonight, to examine our own hearts, because You said, "The natural [mind] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: [they do not make sense; it does not add up; it does not seem right;] because [these truths] are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). Father, give us the grace and mercy of Your Spirit to understand, after generations of compromise, of perversion of the Word of God, of worldliness, of bowing before the world, wanting their approval, judging Your Word by natural circumstances and wisdom, and human empathy. As we have heard said so many times—beloved, how many times have you heard this? I cannot tell you how many times I have been sharing the Word of God, and the love of God, with somebody, and I have heard this exact phrase: "Well, my god would never do that." I usually respond, "I am sure your god wouldn’t; but the Lord God—Elohim, Yahweh, Creator of Heaven and Earth, the God who breathed this Bible—would, for that is what He has declared. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but [this Word] shall not pass away.’ It is eternally ‘yea and amen.’ ‘Let God be true and every man a liar’" (Luke 21:33, 2 Corinthians 1:20, Romans 3:4). How much have we been affected? As living stones, is our course set from the Chief Cornerstone, the One who said, "Who is my mother, or my brethren?" (Matthew 12:48). "I have personally come and I will split your house" (Luke 12:51-53). "Those who do My will, that is your family, that is your mother, they are your brothers" (Matthew 12:50). Make it real to us, Father, as we enter into this generation, that You might be glorified in all our lives and all our deeds. It is a precious thing, to be able to make the choice to honor our God. Give us that grace, Father, we ask in Jesus’ name; amen.

Let’s stand before the Lord as we take a moment and just meditate. We have shared with you that there are a few families in our midst that are battling, right now; [they are] in the heat of battle in some of these different areas, and we ask you to lift up their hands and pray. I know that you have, and yet, it is not about that, it is not about those isolated cases; they are part of it, but it is not exclusively about that. I hope you are catching what the Spirit is trying to say to us, what my heart is trying to convey to us: It is about the little ones, who are coming up. If, in the last days, iniquity is going to abound—if, in the last days, false prophets are going to arise and bring another gospel and bring a broader way—then what must our children know, for them to be safe? What is this seduction that is awaiting us in the days to come? How well are we going to fight with idols in our midst? As houses begin to divide, and choices begin to be made by adolescent and adult children, I just want something to be very clear: Isaac and Ishmael do not grow up together, they do not live in the same house, they do not [both] receive the inheritance. "As for me and my house…" Why was Abraham chosen? Why were you chosen? Why did He give you that heritage, that blessing, but to raise up a godly seed? God is sovereign. God has spoken. Father, make it real in each of our lives, we ask in Jesus’ name; amen. Before you go, turn to somebody and say, "The Lord our God is one." Amen. Go in peace; God’s love go with you.

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