Consecrating Our Children to God — Denny Kenaston

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

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These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Reading in Jesus' name this morning, I know that you can't do it.

I know you can't go away and come back like I do so many times. But I am continually made aware of what a blessing it is to be here because I go away and I come back. What a joy to sit together, to sing, to see everyone's faces, to know what is in your hearts, to know that we go in the same directions and there are many of us.

What a blessing to my soul. Well, I bring a few greetings back with me from Africa. Of course, Brother Ross and his family, they feel very close to all of us here. They sent their greetings and also their thanksgiving for all the letters that have been being sent there.

I know that we were having an elders' meeting on Monday, just last Monday, and Brother Francis brought the mail to this elders' meeting. And here's a stack of mail like this for Brother Ross. I was a little jealous.

It's a lot of mail. Some of that was for the young people, but much of it was from people from here and other places writing letters of encouragement and blessings and prayers to Ross and to his family.

And they send much thanksgiving back because of your tender care for them. And also, I bring greetings from Brother Francis. Those were his last words to me as I left. I bring greetings to each one of you from him, and he's looking forward to being with us in just a few weeks.

He'll be coming back with the young people when they do, and he'll be around for six weeks. Not necessarily here, but he'll be in the United States for six weeks. We plan to put him on the road some, visiting different churches and preaching.

I plan to share on Wednesday night about my trip, but I'll just say this. I have a very good report to give, and God has answered many of your prayers. It's very evident. Oh, I would that we could grasp it deep down in our souls, that we really can touch Africa from America.

Anytime we want to, we can do it. And I have a few illustrations to share with you about that, and I trust that they'll motivate every one of us to pray more for what is going on over there because God worked many miracles.

Well, I'd also have to say the weather was kind of a shock to me when I got off the plane on Wednesday evening and walked out of the airport there and took my first breath of five below zero air. It was quite a shock.

In fact, it even hurt in here, you know. I just wasn't ready for it or expecting it. I didn't know what the weather was like. I had seen on a weather map that things were colder, but I had no idea it was that cold.

The Meaning of Consecrating Children to God

So I went from 95 degrees to five below zero in 24 hours. It's very warm there. Well, this morning I would like to bring a message that has been on my heart for a while. I often say it's been on the back burner, and this message has been on the back burner for some time, oh, I would say since September, when God began convicting me about the need of this message for my own life.

The title of the message is Consecrating Our Children to God. The burden of the message came by a question that was given to me, I believe, in September when we were on our trip. Many questions come. Someone came up to me and asked me a very simple question.

They said, how do you consecrate your children to God? That was a very simple question, and I thought, oh well, no problem, I'll answer that. And I began with enthusiasm to describe what we do at our house when a child is born.

And I explained to them how that it's a very earnest time, and how when the child is brought forth, usually before we even cut a cord, we gather the family together and take the child and hold the child up in our hands before the Lord, and we all enter in together into a prayer for this child.

And I finished telling that with enthusiasm, and the person said, well thank you, I just wondered how you do that. And they went their way, and I went on answering other questions. But God was not done that year.

He continued to speak to my heart, and God said to me, in the quiet of my heart, that isn't how you consecrate your children to God. And I said, well Lord, well what is it? How do you do it? God just began to probe me and prod into my own heart and began to remind me of the things that it really takes if you're going to have your children consecrated to God.

And God began to convict me, and He helped me to see that that isn't how you consecrate your children to God. Yes, that's a good beginning. Yes, it's the right thing to do. But that isn't necessarily how you consecrate your children to God.

And God began to speak and show me that it's more than that, that it's much deeper than that, that it reaches much further than that, if you truly consecrate your children to God. And after a couple of days of meditation upon the question, I had to bow my heart and say, yes Lord, you're right, that isn't how you consecrate your children to God.

Now that's a good prayer that you pray when a child may be born, but that isn't how you consecrate your children to God. It's much more than that, and that message has been on my heart since September, setting on the back burner, so to speak.

But the message came clear last Tuesday as I was in Africa, Tuesday just a few days ago. I flew on Tuesday night there, and it was Tuesday morning, and I was out on the ocean front for my last look at the ocean for another year.

But I was out there, and it was Tuesday morning, and I was wrestling. I was struggling like many of you parents have done when you said goodbye to one of your children, and they got on that bus, and they're heading to New York City, and you know you're not going to see them again for five or six or seven weeks, and you know that you've got to just cast them into the hands of God and trust God for them.

Well, I was struggling with some of those very same things as I realized I'm leaving today, and one of my sons is staying there for another five weeks, and this whole thing was going on inside of my heart just like it goes on inside of your hearts, many of you.

I've been here, I've stood in the back of the auditorium, and I've seen some of the struggles, I've seen them on your faces, the things that go through your heart and minds as you realize my child is leaving, and I don't know if they're going to come back, and I'm trusting that God will take care of them, but I don't know if they're going to come back, and I don't know what will happen to them while they're away, and I don't know what they're going to go through.

Well, all these things were going through my own heart as I realized that I'm going to leave my son in Africa and I'm going back to the United States, and I wrestled with this out there on the rocks, found a place there where I could pace back and forth, and I wrestled with this thing, and I was praying about it, and finally God helped me to get on the other side of the struggle, and He began to speak to my heart, and as God began to speak to my heart and remind me of what it's all about and the reasons why I've been doing all the things that I've been doing for the last 16 years in this boy's life, God began to show me fresh and new what it was all about and why I was doing it and what the purposes were and what all the sacrifices were for, and I began to realize, Yes, Lord, You're right.

This is what it's all about. And after I got through the struggle, I sat down there on the rocks and just began to meditate, and all of these things just started coming. So, I'm just going to share this morning out of some of the meditations of my own heart and the struggles of my own heart, how you consecrate your children to God.

And I'm sure that most of the people that are in this room this morning, if you're a father and a mother, that you have in some form or another, you have consecrated your children to God. And in the way that I described at the beginning, I don't know if you lifted your child up before the Lord.

I don't know if you held the child in your arm. I don't know if it was a special prayer that flowed out of your heart at the time of birth. I don't know, and all those things don't matter. The thing that matters is whether the children are truly consecrated to God.

Whether in your heart and in my heart, we have truly consecrated our children to the Lord. I'd like to begin by reading a text here in 1 Samuel, chapter 1. We could have found a few different places to read, but I'd like to just read here in 1 Samuel, chapter 1.

Hannah's Vow and Samuel's Consecration

Now, there was a certain man of Ramatham, Zophim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jehoram, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuth, and Ephrathite. And he had two wives.

The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Penaiah. And Penaiah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.

And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Penaiah, his wife, and all her sons' and her daughters' portions.

But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.

And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her. Therefore she wept and did not eat. Then said Elkanah, her husband, to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? And why eatest thou not?

And why is thy heart grieved? Am not I better to thee than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh and after they had drunk. Now Eli, the priest, sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

And she was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore. And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember me and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.

And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart. Only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.

And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away thy wine from thee. And Hannah answered and said, No, my Lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the Lord.

Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Bilal, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief have I spoken hitherto. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

And she said, Let thine handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. And they rose up in the morning early and worshiped before the Lord, and returned and came to their house to Ramah.

And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about, after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord.

And the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifices and his vow. But Hannah went not up, for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him.

He may appear before the Lord and there abide forever. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good. Terry, until thou have weaned him, only the Lord establish his word. So the woman abode and gave her son suck until she weaned him.

And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her with three bullocks and one ephah of flour and a bottle of wine and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh, and the child was young. And they slew a bullock and brought the child to Eli, and she said, O my Lord, as thy soul liveth, my Lord, I am the woman that stood before thee here praying unto the Lord.

For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore also I have lent him or returned him to the Lord. As long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there.

I chose to read the text here in 1 Samuel because here we have one of the accounts in the Scriptures where a special child was being given. A child upon whom God had some special purposes for him. As I pondered the life of Samuel and the struggle that Hannah went through before the child was given, I had to think of all the different examples that are in the Scriptures where this very same scenario was worked out.

I think about Abraham and Sarah. They had a special child named Isaac. What made him special? God had a special calling upon Isaac's life, and it seems by the reading of the text that God shut up the womb of Sarah so that Abraham and Sarah could be prepared for this special child to come.

And God shut up the womb so that he, through a miraculous miracle, could bring forth a child that had a special purpose upon his life. I think also of Manoah and his wife, and the son was Samuel. And of course we read about Elkanah and Hannah.

I'm sorry. Manoah and his wife, and the son was Samson, and Elkanah and Hannah, and their son was Samuel. Then we go to the New Testament with Zechariah and Elizabeth who also had a special child named John the Baptist.

Now I'm not here this morning speaking about special children because I believe in the New Testament just like in so many other things. In the Old Testament, a tithe was the Lord. In the New Testament, all of it is the Lord.

In the Old Testament, the firstborn son that opened up the womb was the Lord. But in the New Testament, all of the children are the Lord. And in the Old Testament, many, many different illustrations are given like that.

But when we come into the New Testament, we see that God's true heart is that He have each one of our children and that they be His children and that they be special and that they have special purposes for each and every one of their lives.

So, I had to think this morning, you know, we can gain a lot of insight and understanding if we'll just look into the examples that we find here in the Old Testament of these different couples whom God gave a special child after that child had been withheld.

Think with me about Abraham and Sarah and how they must have raised Isaac as they realized that God had something special for this child to do. Think with me about Manoah and his wife who even when Manoah heard from his wife that an angel had appeared unto him, he went back to God and said, Lord, send the angel back again.

Send this man again that I may be able to ask him some questions because I want to know how to raise this child that God has said that He's going to give. We can look into the hearts of these parents and begin to see the earnest care that they must have had as that child was finally given.

And there, they have the child in their own arms, in their hands, realizing, God gave me this child. Zechariah and Elizabeth are another example who had a son named John the Baptist. And again, a miraculous birth.

And again, some unusual things taking place in his life. The babe leaping in his mother's womb at the sound of the salutation of Mary. Oh, this alerted Zechariah and Elizabeth that there's something very special about this child.

Oh, that God would open the eyes of our understanding and help us to realize that there's something very special about this child. And by that I mean every single one of them that God gives to us. There's something very special about this child.

We don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. But I believe that it's the heart of God that we develop that kind of a mentality as God gives us children one by one that we look at them and realize there's something very special about this child.

Think about the awesome responsibility that settled down over Hannah as she realized, I'm going to give this son away. I'm going to take him to Shiloh and I'm going to leave him there and he's going to be there to serve the Lord all the days of his life.

I wonder how she thought about him day by day while she was nursing him. You suppose she read a book while she was nursing? You suppose she was doing five other things while she was nursing the child?

I don't think she was. I think she was holding on to that little fellow and realizing, hey, this boy is very special and I'm going to take him and I'm going to give him away here as soon as he's weaned and that's going to be it.

I'll only see him once a year when I come forth to Shiloh to worship and to offer sacrifices. I think she took every opportunity to build a relationship with that little fellow named Samuel. I wonder how they prayed over those children.

I wonder how Abraham prayed and Manoah prayed and Elkanah prayed and Zechariah prayed. I wonder how Sarah prayed and the wife of Manoah and Hannah and Elizabeth. I wonder how they prayed as they held that child in their arms realizing this child, God has something special that he wants this child to do.

Consecration as Setting Children Apart for God's Service

I wonder how they prayed consecrating our children to God. What does it mean to consecrate? This is good for us to consider a little bit this morning. There are a few different definitions in all of them.

I believe they all flow together to make a beautiful picture for us this morning. To consecrate means to set apart for special purpose. These are definitions right out of the Strong's. To set apart for special purpose.

Consecrating our children to set them apart for special purpose. Consecrate means to dedicate to the service and worship of God. To dedicate to the service and worship of God. Here is another definition.

To give to God for His use. Just to give to God like Hannah did. She returned him to the Lord. The Lord gave Samuel and Hannah turned around and gave him back to the Lord. What a beautiful picture. And for us this morning, it's very pertinent for each and every one of us that are parents in this room.

God has given us the children that He has given us. Let us be like Hannah and turn around and give them back to God because they belong to Him. Here is another one that will strike a little meditation in your heart.

To consecrate means to fill the hands. To fill the hands. The picture there is that of someone standing with his hands open like this. Maybe like a little child would. You ask a little child, would you like some jelly beans?

They will usually come like this, won't they? Most of them don't come like this. They will come like this. But that's the picture that we get here. To consecrate means to fill the hands. And the picture that I get there is that of preparation.

Something that is consecrated to God is something that is prepared before it's consecrated to God. Something that is given to God, something that is set apart for God's use, something that is set apart for the service of God, is something that has been prepared before it's set apart for the service of God.

To fill the hands. And the last one. The word consecrate means to complete or to see to the end. And there I'd like to speak a little bit about active vision. To consecrate means to complete or to see something to the end or to have a vision or to see an end product or to see something down the road.

Many times we as parents, as we hold our children in our hands and we lift them up before God and we say, OK God, here they are. They're Yours. You can do what you want with them. That prayer, it doesn't mean much if we don't see down the road a ways.

And that prayer, it doesn't mean much if we don't see it under the end. It just doesn't mean much. I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but many, many of the Protestant churches in America, they have baby dedication services.

I mean, they really do this thing up big. They make a service out of it. They bring the child to church. They bring the child up to the front. The pastor, he comes up, puts his hands on the child and they have a dedication of the child to God.

But what does that mean? What does it mean? If when the father and mother are all done and they went through the service and the prayers have all been prayed and they take their child and they go home and they have a nice talk about what a wonderful service it was.

But from that day until the day that the child comes to the age of accountability and has a decision to make before God, if the heart of the parent has not in an attitude of consecration, it didn't do any good to bring the child up to the front and have the pastor pray a prayer over it.

That doesn't do much. That isn't going to affect anything. How do you consecrate your children to God? The Lord was right when He rebuked my heart and said, that's not how you consecrate your children to God.

The Lord was right. That isn't how you do it. It's so much more than that. I think about the consecration of the tabernacle and the furniture there in the Old Testament when the children of Israel were on their way from the Red Sea to the Promised Land.

They consecrated that tabernacle. First they prepared it. And all the furniture thereof and all the vessels thereof, first they prepared them with much tender care. But once they had prepared them, they consecrated each one of them.

They anointed them with oil and sprinkled blood upon them. And their whole attitude toward that furniture changed from that day and all the days forward of that. Consecration. It's more than just a prayer you pray.

It's more than an emotional prayer that wells up inside the heart of a father or a mother at the time of the birth of a child. The consecration of a child is so much more than that. The whole attitude toward the child should be changed if the prayer was a prayer that had any substance, any reality, any commitment, any vision, any burden in it.

If those things were in there, the whole attitude toward that child will be affected for many, many days and months and years to come. If there was truly a consecration of the child to God, just like the children of Israel with the tabernacle and the furniture, their attitude changed toward that furniture because that furniture had been set apart for a special purpose.

That's what it means to consecrate. To set apart for a special service. Oh, I like that. When we think about our children, is that not what our heart is? That we set apart our children for special purposes.

Do we do it? That's the whole point of the message. It's not an act of consecration. It's an attitude of consecration. You cannot consecrate your children to God by praying a prayer at their birth. That will not be enough.

There must be an attitude of consecration just like there was an attitude of consecration toward the furniture of the tabernacle, toward the curtains of the tabernacle, toward the vessels that were used in the tabernacle.

There must also be an attitude of consecration toward your children or they will not be consecrated to God no matter how wonderful your prayer was at the birth of the child, no matter how much your heart was filled with emotion and your eyes filled with tears.

It will not matter. If we have an attitude of consecration, it will affect how we view them every day and for many years. Take my child, Lord, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take his hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.

Take my child, Lord, let its will be Thine. Let his heart be Thy royal throne. Take his feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee. Take my child, Lord, let the treasure of his love be poured out like wine at Thy feet.

Take his lips, Lord, and let them be filled with messages from Thee. Yes, Lord, take my child. It is no longer mine. It shall ever always only be Thine. As I pondered and meditated through the song by Francis Ridley Havergill, Take My Life and Let It Be, I just tried to relate it to a child.

I thought of a father and a mother. You know how it is when your children are born. I know I do this and I know my wife does. Maybe you do too. But I usually, not too long after that baby is born, I usually take that baby in my hands and I look at the baby.

You know, and I take their little hand, you know, and it's so small and I touch it, you know, and I check out all the fingers to see. Yeah, they're okay. And I put my finger inside that hand and I'll get a hold of the child's foot, you know, and I'll look at the foot for a little bit and see how it's formed and see its little toes and what a powerful thing it would be if fathers and mothers would see those hands and consecrate those hands to God.

They would look at those little feet and consecrate those feet to God that they will only go in the right places. That they would be beautiful feet found on the mountain someday preaching the gospel of peace to a lost and dying world.

That those little fingers that are on the hands of that little baby would be used someday to reach out and bless somebody, to reach out and give to somebody, to work in order to help someone else. That those precious little fingers would be used by God someday to mold the life of another person, to bless the life of someone else.

Oh, that as parents, the father, the mother would look at that little baby and those little bitty lips. Oh, often we say the words. I know you do too. Look at the little lips. They're so small. Oh, that we would see if we would look further than those little bitty lips on that child and make a prayer unto God that has some shoes on it that goes on unto many, many years of dedication and consecration of our lives and the life of that child that someday we can look ahead and say, yes Lord, let those lips be filled with messages from You that a lost and dying world can find out that there is a Savior who died for their souls.

An attitude of consecration. This is God's heart. Just like baptism is empty if it doesn't continue on, so the consecration of our children is also empty if it doesn't have any feet to it three weeks later, four months later, two years later, six years later, ten years later.

If there's no feet to those prayers, if there's no attitude of consecration there, it is not going to have the effect that we would like it to have no matter how flowery our prayer may be, no matter how our hearts may be filled with emotion at the time of the birth of a child.

All of those prayers, all of those emotions, all of those funny feelings, all of those things will mean nothing if there are no feet on those prayers, if there is no substance to that consecration that we made there when the child was born.

A Family of Influence for God's Kingdom

It's not going to mean much. While we were in Africa, one of the first blessings that we had in Africa was a young man about 27 years old who was one to Christ. Let's see, we got there. I got there on Sunday night and this was Tuesday morning.

I believe that this young man was one to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he became a disciple very quickly and he went everywhere with us. He helped us when we were building on church buildings and he helped us in interpretation as we were doing evangelism in the villages.

But one thing that stood out to me about the young man, he told us right away that he was from a certain village and that he was part of the royal family. Well, that struck up quite a conversation. We began to find out what is the royal family.

Well, the royal family is the family of influence in the village. And the royal family is the family of influence, and out of the royal family or out of the family of influence, the chiefs are chosen from village to village.

And the young man was telling us that he was part of the Royal Family. He was part of the family of influence in his village and that he had an opportunity someday to be chosen to be the chief over his village.

Well, I wasn't really impressed about all that, but the young men and I got to kicking this thing around one evening up at Wawatee. After the sun went down, we were all sitting around the one light that we have up there because there's no electric, and we're all sitting around and we were discussing this matter, and the chief of Wawatee had just been there to visit us, and he went his way, and we were talking about this royal family, and I told the young men, I said, bless God, by the grace of God, every sinner who gets born again by the Spirit of God can raise a royal family.

And it's so. A royal family is a family of influence. A royal family is a family that has influence in the community where they live, and anybody can do that. By the grace of God, we can have a royal family, a family of influence in the community where we live.

A Consecrated Parent Models a Consecrated Life

So how do you do this? How do you consecrate your children to God? How do you give them to God? How do you set them apart for service? How do you dedicate them for special purposes of God? How do you do that?

Well, there are a few ways that I'd like to share with you this morning, and the first one is probably the most important, but I'll spend the least amount of time on it. And the reason why is because we spend a lot of time on it around here, but it is probably the most important one.

The first way that you can consecrate your children to God, that is to set them apart for service of God and the worship of God. The first thing that you need to do, and the only way it will ever happen right, is that your own life is consecrated to God.

You cannot set apart your children for service for God if your life is not set apart. There's no way that it will happen. That song must be the attitude of your own heart. That song must be the expression of your own heart, or it will not happen.

I don't care how many dreams you may have. I don't care how many desires you may have. I don't care how many books you may read. I don't care how many sermons you may listen to. If in your heart you are not sold out to God yourself, you are going to have a hard time raising consecrated children.

It can't happen. Oh, the Scripture is so clear that the fruit of a spirit-filled life, the fruit of a consecrated life are dedicated children, children who rise up and love God and serve God with all of their heart.

You can find it in many places in the Scripture. It is the fruit of a consecrated life. It is the fruit of a spirit-filled life. I tell you, brothers and sisters, if our children are going to be consecrated to God, we must be also, because they will catch ten times more than you teach them.

And what they catch, if they catch a heart that is on fire for God, if they catch a burden for the souls of men, if they catch a vision for a lost humanity, if they catch a vision of the Kingdom of God, if they catch those things because they are lived out in reality in our own hearts and lives, they'll make it.

They'll make it. Oh, I'd bless my heart as I was meditating upon this message to think about William Booth again. He had eight children, and his eight children, they caught something from their dad and their mom.

They caught something. Now he taught them, I know, and mama taught them, and I know that so, and they had much training, but there's one thing that I know they caught. They caught the fire of their father and mother's love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

They caught it, and all eight of those children did damage to Satan's kingdom in their lifetime. I tell you, it was a royal family. The Booth family was a royal family, and those children did damage to Satan's kingdom, and they scattered themselves all around the world to do it.

It was a royal family, a family of influence. But I tell you why it was a family of influence, because there was a father and a mother who loved God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.

It was a father and a mother there who were sold out to Jesus Christ. Nothing else mattered to them. It didn't matter. In their way, they were going to serve God. They were going to love God. They were going to follow the Lord.

They were going to obey His word. They were going to reach out for the lowest and the most down and outers that they could find and preach the gospel to them. And those eight children, they picked that up.

They caught it, because more is caught than is taught. We all know it's so. The Bible is clear. One of the fruits of a spirit-filled life is dedicated children, children of influence, children doing damage to Satan's kingdom, children who speak with the enemies in the gates, as it says in Psalms.