The Greatest Fathers Who Ever Lived

Kevin Swanson

We have a radio program. We air it every day. I broadcast in my basement in Colorado. I talk to 70
countries around the world. A couple of months ago I was recovering from surgery, and we had to
keep this radio program going, so my son was able to get me downstairs in the studio in our
basement and had me on my back, and then he put the mic down into my face and I just lay there
and broadcast my radio show on my back. Isn’t it amazing what you can do from your basement
these days? Guys, this is great. Technology is bringing things home, and that’s ok with some of us
dads. Amen? We like that.

We’re really doing everything we can with this radio show to revive the notions of faith, family, and
freedom in the 21st century. All three of them are almost disappearing, guys. This is what’s
happening. The family’s falling apart. And right now – I tell you what – there are people doing triage
on this thing, but the family is in far, far worse shape than it was in 1990, and far worse shape than it
was in 1980. You talk about 1960 – we have 7 times the percentage of kids born without fathers
today than 40 years ago. So things are falling apart. 95% of people getting married today confess to
premarital sex. 95%. The destruction of the family and morality is almost a wholesale problem today,
and we gotta do something. We gotta do something. The faith is disappearing.

I think I mentioned in a previous seminar that the Pew Forum did an extensive survey of Americans
and found that the number of people who confessed to be Christians has dropped 20% from 70% to
50% in the last 30 years. Guys, this is a national apostasy. You are right in the middle, right now.
Right now you’re in the middle of probably the most significant apostasy in 500 years of world history.
Europe is losing the faith, and America is following right now, even as we speak.

The Southern Baptists tell us 80% of Christian kids walk away from the faith. Evidently the church
itself isn’t able to salvage it. Now, granted, we’ve got the buildings. Somehow we still have an
appearance of structure. Something religious is happening. But, guys – it’s breaking down. It is
breaking down. It’s coming apart at the seams. And, as I’ve also mentioned, freedom is a problem.
But our radio program is doing what it can to revive these principles, these values, in the hearts of
men and women, fathers and mothers, who care.

One of the problems we’re running into is that mothers and fathers don’t really care. In fact, George
Barna did a study where he found 1 in 3 born-again parents consider the salvation of their children an
important parental emphasis. Double the number of parents want a good education for their children
rather than a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. We’re talking about born-again parents in
America. Only 1 in 3 parents consider that to be an important parental emphasis? What’s going on
with this? What’s happening? Well, the word of God says without a vision people perish, but he who
keeps the law – happy is he. There is no vision, that’s the problem. People do not have a godly
vision to restore these things.

James Dobson recently said, “The greatest tragedy of the 20th century is the destruction of the
American family.” That is the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. And guys? Visionary fathers will
solve this problem. In fact, in my estimation, the only thing that will solve this problem, the only thing
that will save the family in America will be fathers who gain a vision for it. That’s the only thing.

Now I mentioned that 37% of children are born without fathers. That means the hearts of fathers are
separating from their children. On their birthday, 37% of little boys and girls do not have a father on
that day. Now, toss in all those shack-ups. Toss in all of those marriages that end in divorce. Toss
in all of those fathers whose hearts are distant from their children. And when I say there are 37% of
children born without fathers, that’s just the tip of the ice burg, guys.

And some of you might say, “Well, wait a minute. That hasn’t really affected my family. I’m not really,
you know, one of those children, and my children certainly aren’t any of those children.” But, guys,
this is indicative of what is happening to all of us, and the number of children born without fathers is
only going to complicate and exacerbate the issue in the generation or two to come. So you’ve only
seen the beginning of the destruction of the family and the destruction of society all over the world.
It’s not just America. But South Korea – same sort of thing is happening; they’ve seen a birth
implosion from 6.0 in a previous generation to 1.1 in just the last few years. 1.1 is their birth rate.
They will not replace their population. And, of course, the number of children born without fathers has
exploded there in just the last generation. So, the Western thinking, the Western ideas that have
corrupted Europe and are destroying America, are destroying Asia, Africa, South America, Mexico,
and other places as well.

The same message I bring to this conference is the same message I took to Mexico last August at a
homeschool conference where a thousand moms and dads were 100% on-board with this message.
There are, by God’s grace, fathers and mothers who are turning their hearts towards home, and I
think this is going to solve some significant issues in the future.

Well, all of this began for me – this is “The Greatest Fathers In the World” and I have to begin with my
own heritage. By God’s grace I have a godly heritage. I stand on the shoulders of fathers who went
before me and my grandfather was a godly man who left a heritage for us. He wrote his own
biography. I just read this to my kids. Listen to his last words to his family in the biography: “A prayer
for each and every one of our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren (should there be
some in the future) is that each one of them may come to know the Lord Jesus as his or her personal
savior, that they’ll know the joy and peace of sins forgiven, that God may have first place in each life
and each home. We have found by experience and by observation that this is the basic secret of a
happy, successful marriage, home, and life. We pray that not one of our wonderful family will be
missing on that future day when we have a grand family reunion in the presence of our dear savior,
the one who died for us to make it all possible.” This is the heart of my grandfather.

Now, my father, in 1969, made a decision to go to the mission field. One of the reasons he did that
was because he wanted to protect his children. He was concerned about the culture here in America,
and he’s told me that’s one of the reasons. But we were on our way to the Philippines – that was the
original plan – but come 1969 we remember the address where the crates were going was printed on
those crates. And there we were. We were headed to the Philippines, and at the very last moment
my father was told by the mission board that if we were going to go to the Philippines he would have
to send us to boarding school. Now, my father’s father had, in the 1960s, taken his youngest son and
sent him to a boarding school down in Florida where Billy Graham had sent Franklin, and a lot of
Christian leaders were doing this sort of thing back in the 1950s and 60s. But in the process of
sending his son away, my grandfather lost the heart of his youngest son, and this young man who
was my uncle eventually contracted AIDS. He became a homosexual and died of AIDS in San
Francisco. And that’s the direction that this boy went. But it was right there where he lost the heart of
his son. Now, my father is faced with the decision here in 1969: what do we do with my children? Am
I going to send them to boarding school when the mission board said, “You’re going to do it. You’re
going to send them to the boarding school in the Philippines.” My father said, “Over my dead body
you will! It’s not gonna happen! I’m going to keep my children with me.” And they said, “Well, if you
do that you’re going to have to go somewhere else.” My dad said, “How about Japan?” And that, my
friends, is why we became missionaries to Japan.
My father put his family first in every decision that he made. He was a wonderful man, a humble man
of God, a man who believed firmly in the family, a man who stood on his own father’s shoulders, and
a man who established a vision that I continue to carry around the world today myself. My father
wrote three books, each of which affirmed the absolute sovereignty of God over the sovereignty of
man. He wrote one called The Bible and Modern Science where he proposed that if God says it
we’re going to believe it and that settles it. It doesn’t matter what person comes out in a white coat
out of a laboratory and tells you he’s found a rock and it says “4 billion” on it. He says, “You can
ignore that. And they might call it evidence. And they might not take into consideration all the
presuppositions wound up in that – starting conditions, where the decay rates were 4 billion years
ago, 3 billion years ago, 2 billion years ago, 300 years ago. They may not know any of that, but one
thing I know – if God says it in His word, we’re going to hold every scientist from every laboratory on
planet Earth to that truth.” My dad said, “God speaks with absolute truth and there is nobody who is
going to contradict that.”

My dad believed in the Bible. God’s word is the standard for truth. But he also believed that God is
sovereign in the area of ethics. He wrote a book called The Law of God where he just went into the
Old Testament, found the 10 Commandments, and exposited them in Japanese. Now a lot of people
there didn’t know what the Law of God was. We found out that a lot of people didn’t know that God
had the right to direct your life and what you do and the ethical decisions you make.

And he also believed that God was absolutely in control of reality. He wrote a book on the
sovereignty of God where he proposed that not only is God the source of your ethics and your truth,
but God is the source of your reality. What happens around you is ultimately from the hand of an all-
sovereign, all-controlling God who made heaven and earth. So that was my dad’s perspective. I
stand on his shoulders today. My dad never really had a big church – maximum, maybe 20 people
and 8 of those were us. And yet, his focus was to raise us in the fear and admonition of the Lord. My
dad would have 40-minute Bible times with us in the morning where it was every morning – 7:20 to
8:00. We’d read the word of God. He would assign a chance for some of us to exposit God’s word
as well during that period of time. Taught us Greek, made lists of great Christian books that had
sustained themselves throughout history, and said, “Hey, let’s stop reading all this schlock, all the
humanist junk that’s fed to us through our standard curriculum programs. Let’s go into history and
find the very best books ever written by Christians in history.” He made a list of them and had me
read them, all the way from Augustine’s Confessions through Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Whitfield’s
journals, etc. So this is the sort of home that I grew up in.

Now, one more thing I need to say about my dad – my dad was boring. My dad was probably the
most boring person you’ve ever seen in your life. He lost a position as Elder in a church one time
because he was just too boring. But boring’s ok, guys. Boring’s ok. Because my dad was ruthlessly
consistent to every day train us in God’s word. This idea that somehow you’re going to get somebody
saved by an emotional experience by some campfire over a 20-minute emotional sharing time, and
that is going to constitute the great commission in the life of a child is not a Biblical concept at all.
The Bible says “Go out and baptize, teaching them to observe everything that I’ve commanded you.”
It’s an idea of discipleship. It’s an idea of setting down beside somebody as they sit in the house, as
they walk by the way, and sharing the word of God, and constantly sharing the word of God. Not
getting really excited about doing some kind of a family worship for two weeks and then the whole
thing fizzles out, and then three years later you pick it up for a weekend and do a little something on
the weekend, and somehow hope that that’s going to save your children. Deuteronomy 6:7 says
teach your children diligently, and that word ‘diligently’ comes with the sharpening of a sword, over
and over and over again. The diligent teaching of your children as you sit in the house, as you walk
by the way, as you rise up, as you lie down, is what it takes to disciple children for Jesus Christ, and
my parents did that and by God’s grace all 6 children are serving God in some capacity somewhere
around the world today. We have missionaries, we have pastors, we have Sunday school teachers,
we have homeschool moms, we’ve got public school teachers that are on fire for God and bringing
the word of God into the schools and risking getting arrested. We’ve got people on fire for God
because of a few parents that did this a number of years ago.

So, I wanted to begin with my own father and my own grandfather, and, guys, what we’re doing is we
are trying to recapture the idea of what it is to be the godly father, the visionary father, the father like
Abraham who had the faith and the courage to command his children after him. The Bible says, God
says, “I know Abraham, that he is the kind of man to command his children to do justice and
judgment in the earth.” He’s the man who’s so committed to it, he will make sure that his children and
his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren after him will continue to walk in these ways. It’s a
generational vision. It’s going to happen over generations. We stand on the shoulders of the fathers
that went before us.

Some of us didn’t have the best fathers in the world, and I don’t care what kind of father you had. You
may have had a father on drugs and he’s serving time in the local state pen. But, guys, if you get up
on his shoulders you’ll be six inches above the ground. There is something you can honor in that
man. There is something you can take forward into the next generation. The Bible says, “Honor
your father and your mother, that it may go well with you.” In your journey through life. I like to think
of the vision that we are reestablishing in fatherhood and education and homeschooling and
everything else that we’re doing as a journey to a distant planet. Let’s say that NASA hired you to
take a trip to a distant planet beyond our solar system. It would take 200 years to get there going
48,000 miles per hour or whatever it is. It would take you 200 years to make this mission for NASA.
What would you have to take with you on this journey? Well, your wife, right? And preferably another
family because they’re going to have to get married and stuff. Right? Ok. If NASA has put you on
this journey, you are going to have to establish this mission as a multi-generational mission. You’re
going to see the vision out there toward that star right to the left of it about 40,000 miles. You’re not
exactly sure where it is, but you’re going to express the vision to your children. You’re going to crack
open the orders from NASA and say, “This is the journey that we are taking. That’s where we’re
headed. That’s roughly the standard. I’m not exactly sure where it is, but, son, there it is.” And
you’re going to have to tell your son what the mission is all about. In fact, you’re going to have to
make that mission an education experience for your children in their growing-up years on that space
ship. But then one more thing. Before you die, you’re going to have to tell your children they’re going
to have to have children too, and then they are going to have to teach their children so that that
mission can be accomplished that NASA put you on. Well, it’s the same thing, brothers, in terms of
the mission God has put us on. This is a multi-generational mission. We’re not gonna accomplish it
in a single generation. But great things can happen when men assign themselves to this vision and
launch the craft toward that distant planet.

You know, if you’re looking for the greatest fathers on Earth, you’re not going to find many in the Old
Testament. In fact, the Old Testament is a great compendium on what not to do. Right? Eli, Samuel,
David, etc. Many bad examples in the Old Testament. And that’s just the way it was. But when you
get to Malachi chapter 4, the very last verse of the Old Testament, what do you have but a promise
that through John the Baptist and, of course, the coming Messiah, God was going to turn the hearts
of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers. That yes, I know that we’ve had a lack of
generational continuity from David to Solomon to Rahaboam and on and on and on. I know we’ve
failed. We’ve failed many times in the Old Testament. Yet in the New Testament we’ve got this great
promise that God is going to do something, and the Spirit of God is going to be poured out upon dads
everywhere. Tremendous things are going to happen. In fact, the definitive sign of true spirit revival,
folks, is right here in Malachi chapter 4. This is the definitive sign. You want to know if spirit revival is
really happening? You say, “Well, isn’t spirit revival when we all run down to a revival meeting and
get all excited and we’re waving our hands in the air and so forth, and then it all fizzles out in about a
week or two?” Yeah. That’s no sign of spirit revival. Spirit revival is going to be manifested when the
Spirit of God is poured out on fathers and mothers, and God turns the hearts of fathers to the sons
and sons to the fathers.

You know, in the 19th and 20th centuries we began to lose this vision. It’s ironic that some of the
revivalists of the 19th century lost their kids, like Charles Finney and Billy (?). Why is that, do you
think? I think it’s because we began to lose sight of what God wants us to do in terms of the great
commission. We’ve lost sight of the fact that – you know what? – people get saved by means of
discipleship. I had somebody ask me one time, “Which would you rather do – witness to 3 people for
10,000 hours or witness to 10,000 people for 3 hours?” I mean, if you had the choice between one or
the other – that’s it. That’s the only choice you had. Either you get one chance in your life to talk to
10,000 people for 3 hours, or you can talk to 3 people for 10,000 hours. Which would you rather do?
Well, which better comports with what Jesus gave us in the great commission? He didn’t tell you to
go out and get a convert! He told you to make disciples! He told you to teach them to observe
whatsoever I commanded you. It’s a pretty thick book! And you know what? I’ve found that it’s a
challenge to teach a little child to observe, oh, one thing God has commanded us, as in honor your
parents. Don’t look disrespectfully at your mother. We’re still working on that one. And day in and
day out and day in and day out and week in and week out and month in and month out we keep
working on this command. Children, you need to learn to obey your mother and father. You need to
learn what it is to honor – to honor in your lips and your heart. It takes forever. But here’s the deal – I
think it should be normative. We have 5 children serving God for generations to come. In fact, you
know, somebody said that if we’re losing 80% of our children from the Christian faith, and the average
evangelical in America has 1.7 children, we’re going to see the faith reduced to some 350,000 people
just within 50 or 60 years from now. We could see the faith completely disappear, down to about
350,000 people. But, if I commit to raising my children for God, and I commit to discipling my
children, and I develop a vision for this, and I don’t play the 1 in 3 that says, “Hey, this is an important
parental emphasis.” No, this is a commitment. I’m not stepping back and saying, “Ok, which 4 of
my 5 children do I want to see go to hell?” I’m not saying that at all. I’m committed to this. And if I
have five godly children that serve God in this next generation, my children each have 5, and so on
and so forth, within 8 generations I’ve got 350,000 converts and disciples for Christ. So, in other
words, what I’m saying is 80 million Americans today who call themselves evangelicals could work
their way down to 350,000 while I am working my way up to 350,000. You see the difference? That’s
the difference that vision makes.

We have some great examples in history, and I just want to cover a few of these examples for you,
the first of which is the Mather family. We look at the establishing of the United States, and I in my
book The Second Mayflower have really worked hard to determine how did we develop by God’s
grace this God-blessed nation that is the most prosperous and certainly the most free nation among
the most free nations on planet Earth. How did it happen? And there was no question in my mind. It
was the product of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was a wonderful revival
of certain basic Orthodoxic principles, as in Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, etc. There were
some great principles. But it wasn’t just Orthodoxic. To get this idea that we were able to recover a
couple ideas and somehow reform cultures for hundreds of years is a false idea. There were
Orthoproxic elements. There were practical elements that came out of that Protestant Reformation
that were powerfully in the hearts and minds and lives of millions upon millions of people, especially
in Scotland, England, and America. And, of course, we received many of those folks thanks to the
persecutions of the Stewarts and the other kings of those areas.

Well, the Orthoproxic element that was so important was the recovery of the word of God in the
common tongue. That’s what it was. Thanks largely to Gutenberg, right? Because he developed the
printing press – you remember that. And now that we have the printing press we’re not only able to
translate the word of God into the common tongue, but print it so that the average father would have
access to it. Now if you look at the encouragements of men thousands of years ago, like Chrisostum
(?) and others, they were constantly encouraging fathers to bring their children up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. But as you get into the Middle Ages, you find there is this period of time
where you didn’t really see a deep expression of family piety. Piety was primarily expressed by
celibate monks and nuns. That was the highlight, that was the representation of how people were
going to live pious and live in Christian piety. But they didn’t really emphasize family piety.

Now, by the time you get to the Protestant Reformation there is a huge revival of what we call family
worship. And here through family worship men were required and held accountable by their
churches to be sure that at least once or twice every single day they were holding family worship and
opening the word of God and teaching their children – a heart of a father to the heart of a son – and
that happened for generations upon generations. Now, come 1596 – these are the roots of the
American Republic, my friends – a young man 16 years of age showed up at the home of one of
these people that were the product of the Protestant Reformation. It was a Puritan home. And this
Puritan family had the family worship exercise twice a day. They sang the Psalms, they read the
word of God, they prayed, they had the older children teach the younger children so that they could
eventually teach their own children when they had their own families. And Richard Mather was
wonderfully converted to a saving knowledge of Christ. He became a pastor and then by 1630 he left
England because he was persecuted out by the persecutions of Charles the First.

Richard Mather had 5 sons. And this, my friends, is the legacy of your faith. This is it. By the way, if
you live in Massachusetts and you haven’t read about Richard Mather, Increase Mather, Cotton
Mather – if you haven’t read their biographies, you don’t know your heritage. This is the heritage.
You need to understand the passions, the commitment, the vision of the men that founded not just the
state but our nation. This is it. These are the roots.

Now listen, this is the kind of commitment Richard Mather had. By the way, he homeschooled his
own sons. His wife taught them to read, and once they could read she kind of shifted them over to
him and he homeschooled them until 4 of the 5 became important pastors in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony. 4 out of 5. Richard Mather’s passion – here it is. This is what he said to his sons: “You must
not leave your children to themselves, neglecting to instruct them in the ways of God, sons. But as
you love yourselves and your own comfort, you must be careful of this duty.” See, that’s his
commitment.

And then Increase Mather is his son. Increase is a very important Puritan. He was in the
conservative realm, and Harvard College in the latter part of the 1600s was about ready to tip over to
the latitudinarians and become more Unitarian. Increase Mather did everything he possibly could to
keep that from happening. He was by far the most influential preacher of his day, but this is what
really drove him. Listen to the heart of this man. He wrote this in his diaries: “After I prayed as I was
in my garden and had this soliloquy, “God has heard my prayer for this child. God will answer me
and the child shall live to do service of the Lord his God and the God of his father.”” See his
commitment? See his passion? He will have nothing less than his children doing the will of God.
““My heart was melted before the Lord, and therefore I am not altogether without hope that this child
shall be blessed, and made a blessing in his generation. Amen. Oh God, in Christ Jesus. Amen.”
Tears gushed from me before the Lord. I trust prayer and faith shall not be in vain. Oh, I have
prevailed and obtained mercy for my poor children. Amen, Lord Jesus.” What did these men want?
What did they desire? They desired a covenantal, generational continuity in the family, and this is
what beat in their hearts.

Cotton Mather is the son of Increase Mather. By the way, Increase Mather had 9 children and Cotton
Mather had 16, so you also see God is blessing them with children and populating the Massachusetts
Bay with all of these godly children, all of which are serving God. Here’s Cotton Mather - his
resolutions at the birth of his children: “I will resolve to do all I can that they may be the Lord’s. I will
not actually give them up by faith to God. As soon as my children are capable of minding my
admonitions, I will often admonish them and say, “Child, God has sent his son to die to save sinners
from death and hell. You must not sin against Him.” Let me daily pray for my children with
constancy, with fervency, with agony. Yea, let by name, let me mention each one of them every day
before the Lord.” And on and on it goes. By the way, his children served God as well. You had
multiple generations develop out of all of these families, many of whom became pastors, many
became leaders in the colonies, and all of them had a passion to make sure that their children walked
in God’s ways and took on their father’s God.

This is how you found a nation like this. You simply cannot do it without multigenerational
faithfulness. It just isn’t going to happen. And this is your legacy. This is the legacy of the Mather
family.

Well, let me give you another example of a very important man, John Paton – I believe the greatest
missionary of the 19th century, a man of tremendous courage. And, by the way, if you haven’t read
Missionary Patriarch to your children, the autobiography of John Paton, you need to get it from Vision
Forum. It’s a great biography. It’s his autobiography. John Paton, the most important missionary of
the 19th century, the greatest century of missions we’ve ever had in the extension of the church
around the world. And it was a guy like John Paton who really was the zenith of this movement. He
was a man that drove the missionary movement unlike anybody else. He was also a man that took
on one of the most dangerous areas in the South Seas anybody had ever been. The first several
missionaries that had hit the shores of Tanna had been eaten by the cannibals, and John Paton was
the next in line. And he boldly went ashore. By the way, within a few months his newborn child and
his wife died of disease. Immediately he went on to take territory for Christ, but not before his life was
threatened multiple times. He was chased off the island of Tanna, he was almost sawn asunder, shot,
burned alive, etc. The story is just unbelievable. Miraculous things happened where God just
stepped in and protected this man again and again and again and again.

But, I’m telling you, folks, there are challenges and then there are Challenges as you take on the
gates of Hell, and it takes a certain kind of man to be able to stand up as John Paton did with great
faith and great courage. And I believe the vision, really, that John Paton had, was a vision that began
in a little home in Scotland. Listen to how he speaks of his father’s family worship time. Again, the
Scottish were faithful at family worship. And, by the way, if you read about all these missionaries
throughout the 19th century, about half, maybe 80% of them, were Scottish. The Scottish had
tremendous influence around the globe in the missionary work. But here is John Paton’s
autobiography on his father: “How much my father’s prayers impressed me I could never explain, nor
could any stranger understand when on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in family
worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the heathen world, the service
of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need. We all felt as if in the presence of the living
savior, and learned to know and love him as our divine friend. As we rose from our knees I used to
look at the light in my father’s face and wish I were like him in spirit, hoping that in answer to his
prayers I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed gospel to some portion of the heathen
world.” You see, there it was. The little vision formed in the little cottage in Scotland. A man whose
heart was crying out, tears running down his face for the missionaries, of missionary service to these
foreign lands. And John Paton caught the vision and carried it forth. Tremendous things happened
as a result of it.

Guys, all of this begins when the hearts of fathers turn back to the children, and the children to the
fathers. And I think we all need to ask the question: who is responsible for discipling my children?
Isn’t that the basic question? Who’s responsible? Who did God make responsible for that? Well, just
look at his word. Look at his word, and what you’ll find is that you are. See, I look at the kingdom of
God as being geographical, institutional, and generational. It’s not just geographical. Yeah, it’s
important to get the gospel out to new lands. We all have a responsibility for all aspects. We want to
see the gospel go, but that’s just geographical. The kingdom of God, as it comes to a man, as the
nations are discipled and as we’re taught to observe everything that Jesus has commanded us,
eventually as that teaching continues and continues and continues, you’re going to see that affect
institutions. You’re going to see that affect marriages, economic systems, political systems,
everything.

But let’s say that you went to a foreign country, a little island out in the middle of the Pacific, and you
got 40,000 people saved, and you began impacting their institutions. But somehow in the process
you forgot to teach them Ephesians 6:4 [Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them
up in the training and instruction of the Lord.]. I mean, you just forgot! You forgot to mention
Deuteronomy 6:7 [Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when
you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.], or 1 Thessalonians 2:11 [For you
know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children,]. You forgot to mention
the book of Proverbs where a father is instructing his son in the ways of God, where he’s pouring out
his heart to his son, saying, “My son, come close. Observe my ways.” He pleads with his son, he
commands his son, he warns him, he rebukes him. You forgot all of this. You did not equip the men
of God to pass the vision on to the next generation. What would happen? What would happen on
that island? If you got 40,000 people saved and you forgot to tell them about Ephesians 6:4 what
would happen? You’d have to go back in about 100 years.

This is happening everywhere! It’s happening in Japan. I tell you, the kind of message we’ve taken
to foreign countries is not helping much. I know from personal experience that we have poured so
much of our energy raising up churches in Japan, and the whole next generation isn’t discipled by
their parents. And we lose it! It’s a recipe for disaster, friends.

I got a call from Barna Institute about 3 or 4 years ago. Sitting at my desk, I get a call. I couldn’t
believe it – it was Barna. And they’re the folks who do the surveys of Christian ministries and stuff to
figure out what’s wrong. And he was concerned about the 80% leak problem. 80% of these kids are
walking away. What do you do about it? And since we had just started a church 3 or 4 years earlier,
they wanted to know a little bit about what we were doing.

So they said, “Ok, it’s a big problem. We’re losing the kids. What do we do? What do we do? What
do we do?”

And I said, “I know it’s a big problem – terrible.”

He said, “Well, what are you doing?” And he went down his little list. He said, “Ok, what do you got?
Sunday schools. What do you do in your Sunday schools?”

I said, “Oh, we don’t have any.”

He said, “You don’t have any Sunday school?”

“I don’t have any Sunday schools.”

“Ok, what about youth groups? You have any youth groups?”

I said, “Oh, ah, we don’t have any of those either.”

“How about youth camps? You got some youth camps going there?”
“Ah, no, we haven’t got any of that either, actually.”

“What about VBS? You got a VBS program?”

“No, we haven’t done it.”

“What kind of losers are you guys? What have you been doing? I mean, there’s this problem where
kids aren’t getting saved. What do you do? What are you doing about this?”

I said, “Well, we went into God’s word. We looked up Ephesians 6:1-4, and we found this really neat
program. Right there. It’s really low-budget.”

“Low-budget? That’s great. Well, what’s involved?”

I said, “It’s really low-budget. All we do is we stand up in front of the congregation and we tell fathers:
bring those little guys up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That’s what we tell them. It says:
Fathers, bring your sons and daughters up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And then we
look at the children and we say, “Listen to him. Honor him.” That’s all we do.”

He said, “Wow, that sounds really weird.”

I said, “Yeah, it is pretty weird. But that’s what we’ve been doing.”

And, brothers, I am telling you there is a revival happening in my state. I am telling you we have
hundreds of children now that love their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. I’m seeing
it with my eyes! I can’t believe the number of children that aren’t fornicating. I don’t know if I know
anybody who fornicates. Isn’t that what you want, brothers? Amen! And these children, when they
turn 18, 19, 20 years old, they engage in what’s known as courtship. It’s where fathers are involved.
They’re really connected with this. And they’re honoring their fathers. And many of the fathers say no
kiss, no touch, until that altar. And they say, “Thank you, Daddy. Thank you. I like that. I honor my
father’s commandments. I want to tie them around my wrist and bring them around my neck.” I’m
seeing it with my eyes. Brothers, I’m seeing it! It is a revival unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,
and it all began because we found Ephesians 6:4.

But I think it starts before that, before Deuteronomy 6 and verse 7. That’s where it says brng your
children up by teaching them God’s word as you walk by the way, as you rise up, as you lie down.
And by the way, that’s in the male singular, again. Oh, the Hebrew had to give us the gender! Sorry,
dads. Tag, you’re it one more time! God holds you responsible for it. But before he says “Teach your
children diligently.” what does he say? Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and
strength, so much that you will teach your children as you walk by the way, as you rise up, as you lie
down. You see, the teaching of your children, the discipleship of your children, is connected to the
love, the passionate love you have to God. The reason the Mathers desired their children’s salvation
and discipled them with everything they had was because they were committed to loving God with all
their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And as far as I’m concerned, there aren’t enough families in
Massachusetts that love God. Huh? There aren’t enough fathers and mothers here in this state that
love God because if they did they would teach their children God’s word as they sat in the house, as
they rode in their car, as they walked by the way, as they rose up, as they lay down. And they don’t
do it.

It’s our passion as leaders of our movement in Colorado that there be just a few more people who
would love God passionately. People ask me sometimes, “Well, how hard should I try to get my kids
saved?” It’s a great question. I guess that depends on how much you love God with all your heart.
You see the connection here? Don’t just try to get your children saved. Just please passionately
love the God who sent his son to die for you! Just love him, and you will disciple your children to the
God that you love so passionately, right? This is the real core of it. Loving God with all of our heart,
soul, mind, and strength.

You need to also put together a family vision. Develop a vision for your family. You’re the head of it.
You’re the leader. Develop the vision. Write it down. Make it explicit. Memorize it. Have your
children memorize it. What is the vision of your family? And please don’t just write “To make a bunch
of money and have a bunch of toys when I die.” Ok? That’s not allowed to be on the list. What you
want first and foremost is something like “I want my children serving God for generations.” No
divorces in this family for a minimum of 8 generations. You figure it out. Write what you want.
Develop the vision that you have for your own family. I want to end abortion in America. I want to see
40 grandchildren serving God. I want my children with godly character. I want them exhibiting love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. I want them being conflict resolvers,
peacemakers. That’s why I love Ken Sande’s stuff. I don’t want them breaking up relationships. I
don’t want them splitting churches. I want them knitting churches back together, bringing the hearts
of enemies back together and making peace. I want my children having a little worldview savvy. That
is, they’re able to identify false worldviews when they see them.

I walked into a charter school convention one time and just looked at the materials. In 20 minutes I
came up with egalitarianism, existentialism, Marxism, evolution (evolution was in the math book).
People tell me, “Oh, math. Math is neutral.” It was in the math book. Pluralism, polytheism.
Example of polytheism – little boy in Japan worships at the altar of his dead ancestors. That’s how he
expresses his values. How do you express your values? What is that? That’s called polytheism.
He’s got a god, you’ve got a god. All the gods are equal. You see? That’s being expressed
everywhere, and a lot of people can’t determine when they’ve seen these things. I want my children
to look at materials and know what is right and what is wrong, what is a proper worldview and what is
an ungodly worldview.

People ask me, “At what point can we send our children into an environment that is unfriendly to our
worldview?” Well it’s a great question. The answer is: what are our marching orders? What are we
supposed to do? 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that
exults itself above the knowledge of God and Christ.” That’s what they’re supposed to do. Ok, so
you’ve got imagination that exalts itself above the knowledge of God and Christ – egalitarianism,
socialism, Marxism, polytheism, whatever. There it is. Cast it down. That’s your job! You found it?
Smash it. That’s your job. So if they’re ready to do that, if they can discern it, if they can properly
execute the casting down of the imaginations then send them to the secular universities and let them
go to work. But that takes a great amount of discernment. I don’t want my children to just be
survivors – I want them conquerors. That’s the vision that I have for my children. And willing to be
persecuted for Christ. That’s the other thing.

Well, let me close here. There’s one thing you can do tomorrow. I think every father should do this.
And that is read the word of God to your children every day. Read the word of God to your children.
Gather your children around and have a time of family worship. I don’t know, 5 minutes a day is fine.
Ours goes about 45 minutes because we’re really into it. We’ve been involved with this thing for a
long time and we enjoy it. It is the core element of a homeschool program. Why? Why do I say that?
Because God says it. You shall teach your children Saxon math as you sit in your house, right? No,
no, no, no, no. You shall teach your children God’s word as you sit in your house, as you walk by
the way, as you rise up, as you lie down. That’s the core of the homeschool program. That’s the
very, very, very core of it. So are fathers important to the homeschool program? Absolutely. You
guys are the core of it. Now, I don’t think you have to be doing everything, but you can be involved in
that core element, of being the prophet in your family, raising your hands and praying to God over
your family. Teaching them the word of God. Bringing out the Proverbs.

God convicted me. We’ve got to be teaching our children the Proverbs. You know, I used to be really
gung-ho on Saxon math. Don’t miss a lesson. If you do, you’ve given your children a substandard
education. Uh-uh. Don’t miss the Proverbs. That’s God’s curriculum. He specially wrote that. And
if your children know Saxon math better than the book of Proverbs by the time they’re 18 years of
age, now they’ve got a substandard education. That’s a substandard education. So I want my
children knowing the book of Proverbs like the back of their hands. And so since 5 years ago, we
have been going through the book of Proverbs every day – plod, plod, plod, 3 verses a day. We read
the book of Proverbs, read the 3 verses, I exposit it – this is what it means, and then apply it to the
family. Let me give you an example.

This is very simple stuff, guys. Very simple stuff. But this is what you do. You read, “Go to the ant,
you sluggard. Consider her ways to be wise.” Look up and say, “God wants us to be hard-working
and diligent in this family. That’s what it says right there. You see that, kids? And the ant is a great
example. The ant doesn’t need a supervisor and a micromanager. That’s what it says. It just does
its work without somebody leaning over its shoulder and saying “Have you done your math yet?
Have you done your English yet? Have you done your geography yet? Did you take out the trash
yet?” Ants don’t need that, ok? That’s what the word of God says to you children. Now, just
yesterday I noticed that the waste basket in the kitchen was overflowing, ok? I mean, it was
unbelievable. There were banana peels falling off onto the floor. I almost slipped on an apple core. It
was ridiculous. And I saw 3 children – not 1, not 2 – I saw 3 children walk by that garbage can two
times. And nobody did anything about it.” Now you’ve applied it. You see, you’ve taken the sword,
you’ve defined it, and then you stuck it.

And here’s the key. There’s nobody on planet Earth that can do what you can do. Why is that?
Because the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, the day school teacher did not see your children
walk by that garbage can. You did. And that’s why there’s nobody who can disciple your children like
you can. You’re with them. You walk with them. You disciple them. They’re close enough to observe
your ways, and you’re close enough to observe their ways.

Well let me encourage you to go through the word of God. Go through the Proverbs. Teach them
God’s word. I put together a little thing called “The Psalms - A Family Bible Study” series, where I
believe the Psalms is God’s book on worship, and I am committed that my children understand the
worship of God and the proper emotion that we are to show in life and in worship. There’s no more
emotional book in the Bible than the book of the Psalms. And I wanted my children to understand this
very important book of the Bible, and so I put together devotionals, and I’ve gone through this with my
children 2-3 times. Finally I decided to put it into a book form, and it’s also got 30-40 pages on this
thing I call family worship, which I believe is core to a home school. If you’re not teaching your
children the word of God – if they know Saxon algebra and geography better than they know the book
of Psalms, and the book of Proverbs, and the gospel of Matthew – now you’ve given your children a
substandard education.

Let’s pray.

Our heavenly Father, God, we thank you for the opportunity to raise our children in your fear. God,
we praise you this day for the good things you’ve given us in our children. And God, there’s so much
potential here. As we see them, we know they could be mighty men of God and beautiful women of
God, cornerstones in the palace of the King. But, God, we know that this is going to happen as we
form them, as we disciple them, as we obey Deuteronomy 6:7, Ephesians 6:4, and 1 Thessalonians
2:11. We pray you’d give us the ability to do this, and we just give you all the glory. We know that
you will help us in this. In Jesus’ name. Amen.