SERMON: Proverbs 8:34 (The Gates of Education and Economy)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word. And may the Lord be with you. Last week we began with a simple truth. We've been in this little mini series called men at the gates where we are preaching multiple sermons on this single verse in Proverbs 8.

Talking about what it means to be men at the gates what it means to tear down The enemy's gates and what it means to build up the gates of Christendom. And The simple truth that we began with last week is that if an army knows how to fight But it does not know where to fight then it has become a well-trained army without a mission.

An Army that is a sitting duck waiting to be defeated with skills but without direction. An Army is being led towards disaster and history proves this. I want you to think of Rome in her dying days. The Empire that once ruled the entire known world at that time forgot who she was and What she was fighting for near the end.

She was crumbling in depravity and ruin because at some point she stopped advancing. She stopped playing offense and started playing defense and that is a shift that happens in every Empire just before its downfall.

They stop advancing and they start trying to protect their assets instead of actually pushing forward. And when that happens They've lost their vision and they lose their Empire. Rome forgot that the Empire that was built was built on vision and a commitment to expansion and like all dying empires.

Traded offense for defense and purpose for comfort. And as she sat behind her walls Confident and complacent her enemies gathered on every single side chipping away at her like fruit flies swarming a banana in Comparison to the tiny pathetic little fruit fly the banana may seem overwhelming until Many fruit flies begin swarming it and devouring it chipping away at and it won't be long before it is consumed.

That is what happened to Rome. The vandals came from the south. The Visigoths came from the north and the Empire that once was the terror of the nations Now trembled inside of its gates until it collapsed.

The legions were still training inside the walls. The standard was still hanging on the flagpole. The songs were still being sung in the halls and yet their heart was gone. They had forgotten who they were and why they existed.

They still looked like an army, but they no longer acted like one and In many ways, this is what has happened to the Church of Jesus Christ in the West. We've been taught for decades how we are to fight with the word with prayer with sacraments with repentance and all of those different Weapons that the Bible lists for us.

But we've not been taught where to fight or if we have been taught where to fight. We've been taught not to fight.

Last week.

We gave three theaters of operations on where we're supposed to be fighting. These are the three most basic places where we are to extend the dominion of Christ. That is in the church that is in the home and that is in the government and This week as we dive back into Proverbs 8 34 We're gonna narrow our lens a little further and we're gonna look at two more gates.

I thought we were gonna do nine. We're gonna do two. The last thing that we want to do as Christians is to play defense and Shrink as the modern-day secular vandals encroach upon us. We're supposed to advance.

We're supposed to preach the gospel to every tribe tongue and nation. We're supposed to make disciples of all the nations baptizing the nations. Teaching the nations how to obey Christ in all things defense is antithetical to the gospel and If he's called us to advance Brothers and sisters wouldn't we want to know how to do it intelligently?

If he's called us to war wouldn't we want to have a plan on how to do it? So that we could reject the kind of okie-dokie Evangelic fish attitude that has pervaded for decades. So that our mission would be successful Again last week.

We looked at the three primary categories today. We're gonna look at Education and the economy as areas that we must take for Christ if we're gonna see Christ's kingdom advance to the ends of the earth.

So if you will turn with me to Proverbs 8 34 again as we look at education in the economy. And we will read the word and then we will pray and then we will Go through these things together. The Proverbs 8 34 says this Blessed is the man who listens to me.

Watching daily at my gates and waiting at my doorpost. Remember we talked about recently the my there is God God owns everything. So all the gates let's pray. Lord we thank you. That you have defined the entire world in such a simple phrase and you have called your people Especially the men to watch daily at those gates.

You've assumed in this statement that the gates belong to you all of them and that your people would be in charge of them and yet Lord the the world that we have squandered as.

Christians.

The legacy of this country the heritage of this people that we have squandered as a church is now in need not only of ruling at the gates, but retaking them and Bringing them back into conformity to Jesus Christ.

Lord, would you help us and Would you show us how to do these things? It's in Jesus name. Amen. When we talk about the gates, we're not talking about hinges of wood and stone. We're talking about in the ancient world that the gate was the heartbeat of the city.

It's the place where the land or where the law was rendered where commerce was transacted where marriages were arranged where prophets Proclaimed where armies were mustered where the elders sat in judgment.

The gate was not simply an entryway it was an ecosystem and Whoever ruled the gates ruled the people and whoever lost the gates lost the city. That's why scripture speaks about the gates with such gravity because They're so central to the culture in the life of a people.

For instance Boaz redeemed Ruth at the gate. Ruth 4 1 through 11 Absalom stole the heart of God's people away from King David at the gates. 2nd Samuel 15 2 through 6 Proverbs 31 that woman is known in the gates or her husband is known in the gates because of her.

Jesus himself said that the gates of Haiti shall not prevail if if you could look at one metaphor for the advancement of Jesus's church. He chose the idea of gates and that they will not prevail. Side note gates are not offensive structures.

Gates don't come looking for you. Gates don't come sneaking up on you gates. Don't will to sword at you gates get knocked down by you. The only reason the gates of hell still stand is because we've stopped advancing.

So we must. That's Matthew 16 18. So in that sense gates are a symbol of a nation's dominion of points of engagement. It's a place where heaven and earth even confront The rebellion of the wicked. There are thresholds where kingdoms clash.

So when Proverbs says for men to watch daily at the gates, it's telling us to be present Wherever our society is being shaped. With participation instead of passivity for far too long. The church is traded in Participation for passivity and.

Said that.

Culture and. Being active in our society is off-limits. We're content to worship behind the sanctuary walls, but we've allowed the enemy To swarm like fruit flies in the public square. We've sung in private the songs of heaven when hell has owned the headlines.

We've prayed for revival while forfeiting the ground on which revival will happen. But if Christ is both Lord of heaven and earth Then he's also Lord of the gates every single last one of them. Therefore to rebuild Christendom is to reclaim the gates By tearing down the structures that are evil and by rebuilding them according to the law of God.

That's why David could say in faith lift up your heads old gates and being lifted up Oh ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in.

What a passage.

Because it's not true in David's at time. It's not true in Solomon's certainly not true in Rehoboam's but think about it under the rule of Christ That all the gates all over all the world would lift up their Metaphorical personified heads and would let the King of Glory come in which means he is welcome.

He's welcome in education. He's welcome in government. He's welcome in every single authority structure on earth. That's what David is proclaiming through the Spirit of God that Christ will have dominion over all things.

That's why Jesus Gave the keys to the gates to the church. When he told us the church to bind and loose and advance the Great Commission is nothing less than a campaign of international gate-taking. I Think it's hilarious to me that Islam gets the reputation of being in a religion of Dominion a religion of advance When it is most surely and truly Christ and his kingdom.

That is the one that advances that is the one that will have Dominion. That is the one who will put down Islam and put down all other pagan empires and put down all other things that bring dishonor to the Living God.

It's our job to identify the gates. It's our job to be smart. I Was never a military commander, but suppose I was I Think I would probably look at the battlefield and find the strategic targets and say this one's one We've got to take now and this one's one that we can take tomorrow if you're in the if you're in the ER and someone comes in with a Blocked airway a heart attack and a stubbed toe.

You would be a moron to start trying to fix the toe. We should triage where do we go first? What do we do next? And we should teach the people in those spaces how to obey God and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's our mission. That's our mission until the knowledge of the glory of God Covers the earth as the water covers the sea. So like you look around and ask yourself is the knowledge of the glory of God Covering the earth right now as the water covers the sea and the only answer that you can give as a horizontal, huh?

So if that's the case we have work to do. To stand idle at the gates is treason. To watch the gates remain standing the gates of hell remain standing and to do nothing about it is worse than cowardice.

It's to retreat. When the Lord tells us to advance. Our calling is to see those strongholds fall down so that we can establish the gates of Christendom. So that no longer the hellish sulfuric gates of hell will be what defines our nation.

But it will be the rule of Christ in his law. Like Gideon pulling down the altars of Baal like Elijah confronting the prophets on Mount Carmel like the Apostles. Overturning the idols of Athens and eventually the Christian Church being the thing that toppled Rome.

Every city every county every Commonwealth and every country has Gates where the enemy has infiltrated and it is our job to take them. Because if we don't take them then demons will and do you want to be ruled by demons?

This morning we're gonna march on a couple gates. I don't have them in order as Order of importance even though I just gave you the triaging metaphor, but these are important. The first one we're gonna talk about is education.

The classroom is the forge for an empire's future the blood-stained field of battle for a nation's legacy. Where the destinies of future people are cast and where generations are hammered. Either into the likeness of the one true God or misshapen into the form of a despicable idol.

Where whoever is forming the minds of the children is the one who is claiming our tomorrows? Whoever is catechizing the children is the one who is commanding the next centuries and. There was a time when the church understood this especially in New England.

If you look up school textbooks in New England a couple hundred years ago children were learning Latin Hebrew and Greek in primary school. Where the Holy Scriptures were read unashamedly where prayer was a part of the curriculum.

Where the canon of Western civilizations were read and enjoyed instead of the bull the butt of universities jokes and all of this existed in our past because our fathers knew that faith and Foundations are not at war with each other that true religion and rigorous educational training go together.

Christians are not people who are supposed to be pathetically dumb. Well, I don't know, you know God did it like the whole God of the gaps thing. If God is Lord over all he would be Lord over our mind and if he's Lord over our mind.

We should be the most disciplined well-trained. Intelligent with the gifts that we've been given. Educated people on planet Earth. There are some people who have more natural giftings than I do and you do.

But they oughta not they better not outwork us. Because Christ is Lord over all he is Lord over my mind and I should outwork every single person. Who believes in anything less than Jesus Christ? Because he's Lord.

Our fathers understood that the same gospel that saves our soul also instructs our brains. That truth when it redeems the heart actually begins to work itself out in the head and the hands. But like I said before We are the we are the inheritors of the greatest heritage that was ever given and we will not us.

Specifically, but our generation our century will go down in history as the one that forfeited the greatest heritage of Christianity in all of human history. We squandered it. We surrendered our children to the serpent and we wonder why they slither home speaking in all manners of perversions.

For more than a century. The enemy has not been sleeping. He left the tree of the garden and went to the hustle and bustle of the city and now is dressed in academic robes. Profligating a false gospel you can get you can bet that the enemy has not been sleeping while we've been resting on our laurels.

While we've been singing softly in our pews the serpent took over the school system. Took over the discipleship of the little ones and now his disciples are the ones his blue-haired Transgendered. I'm gonna stop with adjectives.

Are the ones who are training our children and future leaders? His cronies are the ones who are writing our laws that mock the Living God. I was thinking about yesterday. There's two people in the Bible that are really heroic and God praises them.

It's Phineas and Jael. Do you know who they are? Phineas drove a spear through two people who were who were participating in sort of a cult like Prostitution in the camp of God defiling the land. He drove a spear through them.

He skewered them and God said that he was praiseworthy because of his zeal for the Lord and then there was Jael a woman Who drove a tent peg through the head of Sisera because he would defied the Living God.

By the way, if there's ever a verse on why women should have a LTC to carry it's Jael. She was ready with her weapon and she wielded it. I'm just kidding. But the zeal for the Lord, where is that? Why have we become so content to sit inside of our churches while the world falls apart around us?

Why have we pulled back? Why have we stopped advancing? Why have we stopped sharing Christ? Why do we care so much what people think of us? They're gonna think we're mean they're gonna think a lot of things about you who cares.

We have the words of life.

We have the Word of God that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. The Spirit of God that raised him from the dead. We know the hope of the world. We have the thing that will heal them. Why are we concerned if they if they whine or complain about us in this weird blame?

Because all along God has commanded us to disciple our children and to disciple the nation's. And our generation didn't do it we failed in Deuteronomy 6, which is such a Transformational passage. If you don't know it read it.

If you haven't if you've just read it memorize it put it in your heart because it's.

Good.

These words which I command you today shall be upon your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

The Point is simple. I Mean what else is there if you're gonna divide time up into categories when you lie down and when you stand. Like is there any other time. When you go out or when you come in, okay, that kind of encompasses everything.

So in everything we're supposed to teach our children why. So that they will know the Lord for generations. Education of our children is not a matter of preference. That's why Paul says fathers don't provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the fear in the discipline of the Lord.

That's our covenant responsibility. It's a duty that's been entrusted to moms and dads not to magistrates of men. The mind of your children is holy fertile ground and it does not belong to the state. And it also doesn't belong to the church.

It belongs to you and your God and it's your responsibility to raise your children up in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. Every time you sit at the table You have an opportunity to teach your children who God is.

Every time you rise up or sit down or come in or go out you have an opportunity.

Every.

Subject under heaven is an opportunity for you to share who God is because he owns all things both the spiritual and the material. Every lesson can become a liturgy. Every question that your children ask can be an opportunity to share with them the hope that you have in Christ.

So that they will know whom it is that they worship. That your children should not know who you worship. They should know who we worship and.

This.

Goes beyond just our children. The only way that we're gonna see Christendom reestablished in America. The only way that we're gonna accomplish the Great Commission in this society, of course, it's all the work of the Lord.

But he holds us responsible. He's called us to be his hands and feet. The only way that we're gonna see these things happen where the gates are gonna be pushed back. Where we're gonna stop having wicked rulers is to take back the gate of education.

Which is why we have to tear down the false system of demonic in full indoctrination that has happened for far too long. There's no middle ground between truth and treason. There's no fence between Christ and chaos.

You either have Christ or you will have chaos. The state that claims to teach people without religion is propagating a religion of statism and. And the school that excludes the fear of the knowledge of the Lord is.

Can maybe multiply some facts, but it cannot define what is true and what is good and what is beautiful. They can't even define what a woman is. Proverbs 1 7 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom instruction.

This is why the modern education system on its best day. Can babysit future geniuses without goodness. Can maybe raise up technicians without gospel tenderness and scholars without a soul? It has raised for far too long clever devils who are fluent in technology.

But in literate in the truth of the Word of God. But Christ who is Lord of heaven and over earth and over all things. Who rules over all things would call us to raise up an army of teachers again? For fathers to instruct their children at their tables again.

For mothers to return back home and to raise their children again. For churches to preach this kind of common-sense biblical truth again. For homes to become the fiercest Academy of Christendom again.

For the living rooms to become the place where the child is discipled again. For the car to become a cathedral of praise again. For the scriptures to be read aloud in the home again. Until it until it busts out and fills up culture with people who love the Lord God.

The Christian household needs to become the center of culture again, and we have to stop trying to get a microwave solution. To a problem that was created and over a much longer time horizon. Our children we ought to have high standards.

We don't have the highest standards. Our children ought to be fluent. I Know this is ridiculous to think in our day. That is so anti-intellectual. Why can't our children be fluent in koan a Greek so that they can read the Bible?

It's in its original language. Why is that only the pastor who has that training? Why is it that we don't know Latin anymore and the etymology of words. Why is it that we don't read things like Milton and Dante and Virgil and Shakespeare?

Why is it that we think that that those things are above our heads? Do you know fourth graders used to read those things and now most adults are like Oh Shakespeare. We've become dumb. Under the rule of evil men.

We've become stupid. It is Christianity that invented the University. It's Christianity that eradicated litter illiteracy. It is Christianity that brings the knowledge of God. Under pagans we go nothing but south and downward so let our homes be filled with literature with art that points to heaven and I would encourage you that this work is not beyond you mom and dad.

Do not think that you need the state in order to educate your children. Do not believe that lie for a second.

And.

Also, don't even believe the more acceptable lie that you need a classical Christian Academy in order to raise up your children. That's good. It is a good thing, but it is not a replacement for mom and dad.

The educator of your children is you. You are God's primary means of discipling them. And if he's called you to that work, I if you're a parent Then he will equip you for that work. So stop making excuses for yourself.

Stop acting like it's an option not a command. We need to recover the conviction and the courage in this area that we are the educators of our children and that Christendom will flow through their veins because of our faithfulness and The same God who told us to do this work said I am with you always.

Which is another one of those phrases that doesn't allow any holes as You are discipling the nation's beginning with the little nationals in your home. Jesus Christ promises that the Spirit of God will be with you.

So what are you afraid of and how could you not be successful? Again, I'm not saying that a Christian Academy is not a good thing. I think it is. I think actually having the heights of Education is a good thing and not all of us are skilled in every area.

So I think an Academy is wonderful. So long as you are the primary educator of your children. So long as you're not using a Christian Academy to shirk your responsibility in your home. And I'm not also saying that the church shouldn't be involved.

The church should be involved in discipling men so that men will lead their wives like Christ loves the church and so that wives will be freed up to be mothers to bless their children for the Bringing up of generations.

That's what we need to reclaim and rebuild if we want to see Christendom exist in America today. And that is why Paul would even go as far as to say in 2nd Corinthians 10 5 that we are destroying Speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

We need fathers to lead in this way. We need mothers to teach in this way. We need homes rooted and grounded in this way and when we do that we will see Christ Rebuild our country again, but it'll take.

It'll take generations to do it and we need to be. We need to have more of an Amish plan than an evangelical plan. Evangelicals build big churches and have Megatron screens and think that they're gonna win the world back with a few light shows We need to actually get back to raising children who were Unassailable and can't be stolen by the enemy again.

Then we'll see Christendom rebuilt again. That's the first thing I'd like to talk about the second one is economy.