TPW #18 | Family Worship and the Decay of the World

The Danger of Heresy and the Need for Truth

Paul warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse deceiving one another and being deceived. The reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in.

Uninterrupted warfare for the truth.

The most dangerous people alive today are always, always, always ordained ministers. They're the most dangerous people in the world, especially the ones that people think are Christians, who will sell you theological poison to the damnation of your soul.

Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church, without exception, has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture. What happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross?

That was the day of wrath. That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation. Brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe in our.

Unity to Christ.

Family Worship as a Remedy for Church Decay

Welcome to the Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines, your host and pastor of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. And today I'm going to do a program on the importance of family worship.

This is a topic that is extremely important. I think that the neglect of this discipline of family worship, what the Puritans called domestic piety, is really at the heart of the decay of a lot of what's wrong with the church in our country today.

And so occasionally I preach these sermons and really try to push and encourage men in particular to lead their families and to catechize their children and to do devotions on a daily basis, to read the Word of God, to sing together, to pray together, and to talk about the things of God in their homes.

And so I hope that you will find this to be encouraging. This was the morning service this past Sunday and then in the evening service I did another sermon on family worship just with some tips and practical guidance, but this morning is basically a call.

The morning service was basically a call to do it and to see the importance of it from Scripture. So I hope you enjoy it. Pray for God's blessing on our time in His Word now, please. Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us Scripture.

Without it, we are lost. Without it, we would not know you. Without your revelation, your special revelation in Scripture, we would not know how to be saved. And we would not understand our duties in this world.

And Lord, this is a sacred duty that we talk about this morning. It's one that's been badly neglected for hundreds of years. And we pray, Lord, that we would be part of the resistance and that we would stand and obey you in this way.

We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Please take your Bible and turn to Genesis 18. We have three passages we're going to read for Scripture reading this morning. Genesis 18 verses 17 through 19 is the first one.

Genesis 18 verses 17.

Through 19.

Genesis 18, 17 through 19. This is God's Word. The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

For I have chosen him so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.

The next passage is Deuteronomy 6, 1 through 9. Just a little bit over there. Deuteronomy 6, 1 through 9. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 1 through 9. This is God's Word. Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command you all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged.

O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly just as the Lord the God of your fathers has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might these words which I command you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And then one last passage, Psalm 78,.

1 through 8.

Psalm 78 verses 1 through 8. Psalm 78, verses 1 through 8. Psalm 78, 1 through 8. This is God's word. Listen O my people to my instruction. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable.

I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. We will not conceal them from their children but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wondrous works that he has done.

For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children. That the generation to come might know even the children yet to be born that they may arise and tell them to their children that they should put their confidence in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments and not be like their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation.

A generation that did not prepare its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God. May God bless the reading of his infallible word. The great protestant reformation represents the greatest revival of biblical and apostolic Christianity in the history of the church in this world.

The reason the biblical gospel became so widely known and preached was the existence of warriors for the truth who were willing to fight for the one true gospel at all costs. The reformation, however, was not merely the recovery of Christian doctrine.

It was also the recovery of the Christian life. Gone was monasticism. It was the biblical notion of vocation and calling that replaced it. Today we tend to think of what we do merely as a a job a way of providing a way of making money but the reformation recovered the biblical truth that all legitimate callings and vocations all forms of work that serve our neighbor in some way are honoring and glorifying to God.

One does not need to be a monk or a nun a pastor or a missionary in order to be glorifying God in one's work. One of the most important parts of the Christian life that came with this recovery of the Christian doctrine and Christian theology was family life and family worship.

Marriage was no longer seen as a necessary evil as it had been seen in the middle ages and very much since the time of Augustine all the way through the up to the time of the reformation, but rather as a wondrous calling from God to be married.

Remember Martin Luther the former celibate monk wrote rapturously about his marriage and had six of his own children. Children were seen as they are seen in scripture as a precious gift and a heritage from the Lord.

There is in fact an entire array of precious biblical commands that go into effect as soon as a person becomes a father or a mother or a grandfather or a grandmother. The reformers and their successors wrote extensively about the need for what they called domestic piety.

Domestic piety is what the puritans called it also known in our day as family worship. In our age of excessively busy culture both inside and outside the church the discipline of family worship namely doing devotions, reading the bible, praying and singing together as a family has almost entirely disappeared.

We're too busy and we're too fractured as families to ever be in the same room at the same time to do things like this. But many over the past few decades have rediscovered this precious biblical duty through reading their bibles and reading the reformers and the puritans and their successors.

I would like to suggest to you that the neglect of children by parents was almost single-handedly what led to the apostasy of every mainline denomination in this country over the last hundred years. It wasn't so much that they lost the doctrine.

It's that they lost their kids. They lost the children. They didn't teach them the catechism. In fact one of the books that I was told I should read in preparation for my ordination exams by the examinations committee in this presbytery was a book about the history of the PCA by a guy named Frank Smith.

And reading that book he said the reason the PCA needed to be formed is because one generation of people stopped teaching the Westminster Shorter Catechism to their kids. And when those kids grew up, they didn't know anything.

They didn't know Christian doctrine anymore and they didn't care and they allowed their churches to become liberal. So what really led to the formation of this doctrine? It was neglect in people's living rooms of family worship.

God has uniquely called and equipped parents to disciple their children. No other sphere of jurisdiction can do it anywhere near as effectively as the family. Churches have worn themselves out trying to disciple children instead of letting the family do it and they have failed.

One of the primary reasons we're in the middle of the apostasy and the spiritual decline that we're in today is the neglect of this very thing. Family devotions, family worship, family conversation about the Bible, about divine things.

Mom and dad reading the Bible to their children, teaching their children our catechism and working hard at staying close to each other and loving each other well as married people and as families. A church with strong marriages and young people whose spiritual lives are the priority of their parents and of that church will be the most effective churches at reaching the culture with the gospel.

Far more so, far more so than ultra busy churches that have a zillion programs that drain the life, resources and energy out of their people. The irony could not be more biting than it is. By the neglect of marriage and family discipleship and family worship we have lost generation after generation in America.

And now we're looking at a situation that is fairly grim in the short term. I've asked many times where are our kids going to go to church? Where are they going to attend church? And where will our grandchildren go to church?

The options are going to be extremely limited if churches do not discard their unbiblical ideas and embrace biblical ones now starting today. What this Sunday's two messages are about is the second most important thing that I do as a pastor.

This is the second most important thing I do as a pastor. Aside from preaching Christ and him crucified, encouraging what the Puritans called domestic piety or family worship is the second most important thing that I do as a pastor.

It's the second most important thing that I can teach you from God's word. A husband and a wife who dearly love each other and have a vision and a passion to love each other well, and if they have children to disciple them, that is a powerful testimony to the watching world.

And for those of you who are single, I urge you to look at the youth and the young people in this church and recognize there is so much prayer that those children's parents and that those children need and so much prayer that they need from you.

Everyone here is together. We're all part of the same body. We all have the same goals. The children of the families in this church are the children of everybody in this church. We're all together in that regard.

Pray for all of them. Assault the heavens for their souls. I forgot to tell you I have an outline. Sorry. Just anxious to get out of the gate there. All right, so that was point one. Here's point two.

The Decay of Religion Through Neglected Family Worship

Okay, an exhortation of the importance of this. In the introduction to one of the great reformation confessions that came out of the reformation, there's this very stirring paragraph. Listen to this. These pastors that got together that wrote one of the reformed confessions wrote this paragraph.

In 1677, quote, and verily there is one spring and cause of the decay of religion in our day which we cannot but touch upon and earnestly urge a redress of and that is the neglect of the worship of God and families by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed.

May not the gross ignorance and instability of many with the profaneness of others be justly charged upon their parents and masters who have not trained them up in the way wherein they ought to walk when they were young but have neglected those frequent and solemn commands which the Lord hath laid upon them.

So to catechize and instruct them that their tender years might be seasoned with the knowledge of the truth of God as revealed in the scriptures and also by their own omission of prayer and other duties of religion of their families together with the ill example of their loose conversations.

Having.

Inured them, that means to harden them, having hardened them first to a neglect and the contempt of all piety and religion we know this will not excuse the blindness and wickedness of any but certainly it will fall heavy upon those that have been thus the occasion thereof.

They indeed die in their sins but will not their blood be required of those under whose care they were who yet permitted them to go on without warning. Yea, led them into the paths of destruction and will not the diligence of Christians with respect to the discharge of these duties and ages past rise up in judgment against and condemn many of those who would be esteemed such now end quote.

Now notice several things. I know that's older English, but several things to notice about that paragraph. The ministers that wrote this did not locate the cause of religious decay in the wickedness of their surrounding culture.

They didn't say man that our culture is just so full of drugs and alcohol and homosexuality and liberal media bad movies gambling and everything. Rather they said the reason our nation is a mess and our churches are a mess is the homes of Christians who neglect the worship of God and prayer and catechizing and other religious duties in those homes.

The blame for this is to be laid at the feet of those to whom the bible makes the charge that this is to be done. It's also not satan's fault or unbelievers fault. Those who neglect prayer catechizing bible reading and worship in families inure their children.

I had to look that that word up. Inure means to harden. They harden their own families to a neglect of and then a contempt for all piety and religion. That word inure means in the Noah Webster's dictionary 1828 dictionary to cause to accept or become hardened to.

By neglecting family worship christian parents actually ingrain in their children the neglect of the faith of Christ and finally create contempt for it. Some of the most hardened enemies of the christian faith grew up in christian families.

A little known historical fact about Friedrich Nietzsche is that his father was a lutheran pastor. And when that young little boy was born he held him up in the air and they rang the church bells. God has given us a child.

Praise God he's going to go grow up and do great things for the Lord. This guy spent his energy his life trying to destroy the faith and was an atheist. Those who are blind and wicked will die in their sins.

Yes and they die on their own account. But the responsibility for their destruction lies at least partially at the feet of those who fail to evangelize them. The feet of those who failed to train them biblically.

To teach them to to love God by example. To know his word. Point number three. Here are the biblical commands to do it. Family worship. What is family worship? It is the praise prayer and adoration given to God by all the members of one household.

That's what family worship is. It is the praise prayer and adoration given to God by all the members of one household. It consists of prayer the word of God and singing. But this must never be thought of in any way as a replacement for the local church and the gatherings of the local church for worship.

Husbands and fathers are the key to the spiritual condition of their wives and their children. The scriptures lay that at our doorsteps consistently. Ephesians 5 23. For the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church and he is the savior of the body.

First Corinthians 11 3. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. Ephesians 6 4. And you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

You see how fathers are singled out by the Holy Spirit of God in scripture. You are to be the ones who do this. Bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The training and admonition of the Lord.

So I have a question for all who are husbands and fathers. Does your wife's and your children's countenance reflect that you lead your home joyfully in the things of God? Are your children gloomy and sullen in general?

What is the atmosphere of your home like? Are your wives sorry that they're women because of your headship? Dads need to be the principal facilitators of family worship. But sometimes there's not a believing father in a home.

There's not a believing father in the home. The mother has to take up that responsibility, that obligation. Just as the mother and the grandmother of Timothy did. It's one of the most encouraging things in the New Testament.

Second Timothy 1 5. Paul's final letter to Timothy, this young pastor. Paul says, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.

Think about that. Lois and Eunice, a grandmother and a mother. They read the Bible to Timothy, the Old Testament to him. They taught him about the gospel. They taught him about Jesus. What is family worship?

Archibald Alexander, the first president and professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1812, he had a son, a good covenant child named James W. Alexander, who wrote a wonderful little book called Thoughts on Family Worship.

It's a gold mine. It's a treasure trove of good stuff. And James Alexander defined family worship as, as the name imports, it is the joint worship rendered to God by all the members of one household. So what do you do in family worship?

If we're supposed to do this and we're going to see biblically we are, what are we supposed to do in this? Do we, do we print our own bulletins and have announcements and things like that? Obviously not.

Arthur W. Pink also wrote a wonderful article on family worship and he said this, quote, worship should begin with a few words of prayer invoking God's presence and blessing. A short passage from his word should follow with brief comments thereon.

Two or three verses of a psalm or a favorite hymn may be sung. Close with a prayer of committal into the hands of God. Though we may not be able to pray eloquently, we should pray earnestly. Prevailing prayers are usually brief ones.

Beware of wearying the young ones, end quote. And I would add, normally it takes about 20, 30 minutes. Okay. It doesn't need to be as long as the worship service. I assure you of that. Family worship can be done 20, 30 minutes.

Sometimes if a discussion gets sparked and you have a long ongoing discussion, hey, that's great. You know, I used to tell people at the church in Ohio, I've mentioned it to you here, when it comes to family worship, I'm batting about 200.

About one in five is really great. And the rest of them, you do your duty, you read the text, you talk about it, you pray, and then it's done. And then that's what you're supposed to do though. You keep at it.

You stay with it. Now you might be thinking that's all fine and dandy, but does the Bible really require this of us? And the answer is yes. The practice of family worship in the Old Testament, listen closely.

We see throughout the Old Testament from Noah forward, the construction of altars to the Lord, wherever the people of God lived, they would consecrate that area, their house, where they lived to the Lord.

They would build an altar there, which were used to present sacrifices of worship to the Lord in behalf of the entire family. Abraham did not worship God as an individual. Isaac did not worship God as an individual.

It was me and my house. When Joshua was pleading with the children of Israel, he said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. He doesn't say, as for me, as an individual, I will serve the Lord, and hopefully the people in my house will come along.

It's as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. In Genesis 8 .20, Noah built an altar to the Lord. In Genesis 12 .7, Abraham built an altar to the Lord. In Genesis 26 .25, Isaac built an altar to the Lord.

In Genesis 35, Jacob steps up and takes charge of his family and issues the command to them, put away the foreign gods that are among you. It's a great thing. When a father looks at his house and says, okay, there's too many idols in here, get rid of them.

We're done with this. We're done with that. This has got to go. Job, we're told in the book of Job, in Job 1 .5, so it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.

For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus Job did regularly. Joshua, after the conquest and settling of the promised land at the covenant renewal ceremony in Shechem, made the bold pronouncement in the last chapter of the book, I just quoted it to you, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

David, after public services at the tabernacle in 2 Samuel 6 .20, we're told that he returned to bless his household. David had learned this lesson well from his father, Jesse, and we're told in 1 Samuel 20 .6, he conducted a yearly sacrifice in Bethlehem, and the text says, for all the family.

The practice of family worship is also right there in the New Testament. In Acts 10, we're told of godly Cornelius, who was a devout man, one that feared God with all his house. As the leader of his family, he knew it fell upon him to say, we all serve God together here.

So kids, servants, everyone that was part of this household, we serve God together. We go to synagogue together. We're going to listen to the word of God together. As we already read in 2 Timothy 1 .5, Timothy was the product of family worship.

Lois and Eunice taught him the faith. 2 Timothy 3 .15, from childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures. Why would someone from their childhood know the Holy Scriptures? Because they've got a mom or a dad or a grandparent or somebody that's constantly reading it to them.

Have you noticed your children don't usually have a natural proclivity to want to understand the distinction between justification and sanctification. To understand the triune nature of God, we've got to teach these things to them.

We've got to show them by example and by our own study of God's word and reading it to them. These are the most important things you could ever think of. 1 Timothy 5 .8, but if anyone does not provide for his own and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The heads of households are called upon by God to provide physically and spiritually for their households. And if they don't, the passage says they have denied the faith and are, according to the word of God, worse than an unbeliever.

Worse than an unbeliever. Scripture everywhere calls upon men in particular to step up and be leaders in their families. They need to be hard workers, self-controlled, and have hearts filled with the word of God, Christ, sound doctrine, and grace.

It's a heavy duty and a heavy responsibility that God has laid upon men. But this is part of the reason why men have broader shoulders and stronger constitutions. Men have been willing to abdicate, to give up these responsibilities to their wives, to the state, and to others for many generations now.

And it's time for that to end. It is time for men to stop being effeminate. It is time for men to stop being selfish. It's time for men to put away their silly hobbies and their other interests and devote themselves to studying and loving their wives and wearing themselves out in prayer for her and for their children and investing time in their family and being students of the Bible, students of sound doctrine and theology.

Listen to the beginning of the visible church in the Old Testament. This is one of our scripture readings from this morning. And notice the way that God speaks of Abraham, Genesis 18, 17 through 19. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?

Since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I have known him in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him.

If men want a challenge, you want a mountain to climb, you want a goal, you want a lion to fight in the street, here it is. Disciple your family and be really, really good at loving your wife. Make that the thing that you're really passionate about.

Make that the thing that you really love to do. Notice how evangelism and the great commission itself is built in to the way that the one covenant of grace is administered. The great commission is built into it.

God does not have Abraham circumcised his children so that they would know that everyone born into the physical nation was guaranteed to live on the west bank of Palestine. That's not part of this covenant.

It is that they would know the Lord and fear the Lord and do righteousness and justice and be converted, be saved. They were all to be commanded by Abraham to keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice.

Covenant theology has always been an organic concept that includes households, not merely as observers of the church and attendees at church gatherings, but as members of the visible church itself. Heads of households must command their children to pray.

How can we command our children to know the Lord without prayer? We must command them to worship God. We say, as for me and this house, while you're in this house, while you're with me here, we worship God, you will be a participant in the worship of God.

And we command them all along the way to repent, to believe, to sing God's praises and to honor Christ in all things. This has always been the will of God for believers and their households, believers and their children.

There is absolutely nothing about the new covenant that has changed this, changed the gospel or changed the one covenant of grace and the way it is administered in the new covenant. And let us remember that we command our children and our households, not just by what we say, not just by what we teach, but we also command them.

Please hear me carefully. We also command our households by our priorities. We also command them by how we live, what we say, how we say it, our demeanor, our attitude, and by our actions. That which is important to the head of the household will become important to your children.

And if church attendance and participation and the study of God's word are things that constantly fall by the wayside in your home, do not be surprised if they fall by the wayside in the lives of our children.

Psalm 78, we just read it. If you want to turn there, Psalm 78, give ear all my people to my law and cline your ears to the word of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord. You hear that? We are commanded to tell the children the praises of the Lord and tell them his strength and his wonderful works that he has done.

For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set his heart aright and his spirit was not faithful to God.

So I want to issue this call to disciplers, to the heads of households, to godly mothers, to godly grandparents, those who would be grandparents soon, in Deuteronomy 6, 1 through 9. Deuteronomy 6, 6 is really the key verse in that whole text.

It says, in these words that I command you today shall be in your heart. We're not going to teach diligently to anybody what is not in our heart. We're not going to teach by example or by our words something that we don't love ourselves, something that is not definitional to our character and who we are.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed, isn't it? How many of you feel overwhelmed now? I do. Every time I read these passages, I just want to fall on my face and say, God help me, please. You feel overwhelmed by the great duty of discipling a family or another person?

It's hard to know where to begin, but I'd like to suggest that Deuteronomy 6, 6 is the key to all of it. When it comes to discipling our families, especially our children, to follow Christ and his word, we can easily be sidetracked by a whole bunch of things.

We can be sidetracked by over-sheltering from negative influences. We can be sidetracked by being selfish in our desires for our kids. Namely, wanting them to be good so that we look good as parents.

Folks, that's idolatry. Making a happy home life into an idol. Yes, even really godly husbands and godly wives will still fight and will still get on each other's nerves and will still need to confess their sins to each other and to their children.

There's no perfect families. Rid your mind of that thinking. It doesn't happen. Also, we can be distracted by feeling like so much of a failure that you just don't try anymore. And over-emphasizing outward behavioral conformity.

That can be a big problem. We're aiming at the hearts of our children, right? We want them really to love the things of God. Not just to conform to it, but really to love it. To make it their own. The key to all of it is always our own walk with Jesus Christ.

You may be thinking constantly about the waywardness of this child or that child or something that you're seeing here that is troubling you or bothering you. I want to emphasize to you, it's just like Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things shall be added to you.

If your mind is always on all these other things, you're going to be distracted. You keep your own heart close with Christ. Stay in close communion with Christ and with the Lord and in prayer. Our personal walk with God, our love for him, and our humility in following his word.

That's the key to everything else. It's always the key to everything else. Nothing will affect our relationships more with others than our own walk with Jesus. Should we be concerned about sheltering our kids from negative influences?

Yes. And you're out of your mind if you're not. Should we be interested in their behavior? Yes. Should we endeavor to have a happy home life? Of course. But the foundation of all these things is always the heart.

Our hearts and theirs. Many of you I'm sure have read Ted Tripp's book, Shepherding a Child's Heart. That title has a lot of meaning built into it. We're not shepherding their behavior. We're shepherding their heart.

We want them to be worshipers of the living God. We want them to know Christ and to be reconciled to God and to have the same heart desires that we do. We're not merely wanting to transfer data into their brains like you would transfer a file onto a thumb drive from a PC.

We want to transfer the affections of the heart to our children and we want them to have what we have. A genuine walk with and love for Christ. We want them to be saved from their sins and so we ourselves must live a life of repentance and brokenness before them.

It's okay to admit to your children you failed in this, that, or the other way because we all fail in various ways. Every parent in this room has felt, feels, or eventually will feel like a failure. It's just not working.