TLP 192: Family Worship, Part 2 | failed family worship

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Remember, there are primary consequences and secondary consequences. The secondary consequences, like going to jail, they don't always occur when a person sins.

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But the primary consequences always happen. Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents.

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Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host,

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A .M. Brewster. Welcome back to our family worship series. I hope you listened to our last episode because it sets the parameters for our study and discuss what the series is and is not about.

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But before we jump in today, I want to remind you that in less than one week, Lord willing, I'll be flying to Dallas, Texas, and Matt and Sonia will be hosting the first ever

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TLP meetup. If you live in the area or plan to be in the area, I'd love for you to stop by.

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We want to be an encouraging time for you, a time to refocus on truth, be surrounded by other

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Christian parents who are working to glorify God in their families, pray, and talk. It should be an awesome time and I'd love for you to come out.

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If you think you'll be able to attend this free event, please send an email to TeamTLP at TruthLoveParent .com

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or go to our Facebook event and click that you'll be attending the meetup. Also, if you've been listening to the show for any length of time, we'd love for you to rate and review us on iTunes or recommend us on Facebook.

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Your reviews and recommendations are hugely helpful and we ask that you prayerfully consider leaving one. All right, today

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I have the unfortunate responsibility to discuss failed family worship, but I'm going to do so only because I know that it should help us understand the unified family worship that glorifies

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God. You see, last time we discussed that we spend every moment of every day worshiping either God or self and we use everything in that worship.

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Our time, our showers, our clothes, our food, our transportation, our houses, our jobs, everything will either be offered on a pathetic little altar to self or on the altar to God.

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Anything in our lives can either be offered to self or to God and it takes care and discernment to know to whom we're offering our lives.

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So today we're going to do a flyover of the books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2

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Chronicles. Those four books present a brief history of the kings of Israel, both in the unified kingdom and the split kingdom.

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Some of the kings are discussed in great detail and some are barely left as footnotes. But what's really interesting is that nearly every king was critiqued according to their worship.

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Now, this is where many modern readers from first world countries start to struggle. In the Old Testament times, formal religious acts of worship were very different from today.

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The Old Testament temple system is familiar to most of us, but it's still very foreign, but the heathen worship of the day ever more so.

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So many times throughout the Old Testament, we encounter the term high places. These refer to geographical areas in which pagan religious rites were practiced.

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The average high place would have an altar, a carved wooden pole that depicted the female goddess of fertility called an

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Asherah, a stone pillar symbolizing the male deity, other idols, and some type of building.

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Now I'm not going to cite all the references right now, but while you're listening or after the show, you can go to truthloveparent .com,

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click on our Parenting Tools tab, and check out our blog, Taking Back the Family. There you'll find our free episode notes and I'll cite all of today's references and more on those notes.

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Moving on, at these places of worship, the people sacrificed animals, and at some high places, children were sacrificed according to Jeremiah 7 .31.

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They also burned incense to their gods, prayed, ate sacrificial meals, and were involved in male and female cultic prostitution.

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Now although most high places were part of the worship of Baal, the Ammonite god Molech and the Moabite god

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Chemosh were also worshipped at similar high places. And though scripture speaks very negatively about these heathen places of worship, still they played a central role in the lives of most of the people who lived in Palestine before the land was defeated by Joshua.

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Interestingly, archaeologists have discovered the remains of high places at Megiddo, Giza, and a number of other sites.

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Now when the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, they were ordered by God to destroy the high places of the people who lived in the land, and we see that in five different places throughout

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Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And they were expressly commanded to destroy these high places lest the

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Israelites be tempted to worship the Canaanites' false god and accept their immoral behavior. Now before we consider the

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Israelite kings who not only worshipped at the high places but also encouraged their people to do the same, we need to contextualize this concept for our families.

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A few of you are worried that your children or spouses are going to create a shrine on a small hill in your backyard where they plan to offer incense and sacrifice cats to a pagan god.

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To be fair, some of you are listening to today's show and you live in a country where that type of religious rite is prevalent.

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But the point is, we need to understand that whether your daughter is participating as a cult prostitute or she's wearing the most modest clothes she can simply so that she can appear more righteous or as an attempt to merely please her authorities, she's worshiping self.

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It doesn't matter if your son is getting great grades simply so he can pursue his dream job even though he's not really interested in considering God's will for his life, or if he's sacrificing animals to a wooden statue.

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He's not worshipping God, he's worshipping self. God hates false worship. He hates giving fake gods the worth that should only be given to him.

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He hates when we make choices for ourselves because that too is an act of worship to a false god. So when we read about these kings who worshipped at the high places,

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I don't want you to get lost in the ancient pagan religious rites. I want you to understand that God is merely illustrating all kinds of false worship.

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So, who was the first Israelite king to worship at the high places? Well, Saul was the first king and he was followed by David.

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David had a son named Solomon who was the wisest man who ever lived. And yet, it was Solomon, the third king of Israel, who was the first king to initiate idol worship.

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God used Solomon to construct the first temple in Jerusalem and the people were to worship God at the place that he had chosen.

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But Solomon also built high places for the gods of his foreign wives and even worshipped there himself.

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1 Kings 11, 4 -8 says, For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the

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Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the

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Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord, and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the

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Ammonites, and on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

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Now again, I want to point out that Solomon's false worship started in his heart. The Bible says that his heart was not wholly true to the

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Lord his God and did not wholly follow the Lord. That is the seed of false worship.

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For Solomon, that seed grew into many areas of his life. Yes, it grew into constructing high places and offering sacrifices there, but it also manifested itself in all of the wives he had.

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It worked its way into his parenting and in his leadership. As wise as he was, he didn't offer all of his life to God.

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He sacrificed many of his daily choices on an altar to Solomon. Now because of the seriousness of this sin,

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God divided the nation by removing ten tribes from the kingdom of his son Rehoboam. Consider that consequence.

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The nation of Israel, God's chosen people, was split in two. Among other things, this rending of the

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Jews was symbolic of the effects that failed worship had on people. Because it's sin, it destroys everything.

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Following this depressing account, each new king that ruled in the southern kingdom of Judah and in the northern kingdom of Israel was evaluated in the books of Kings and Chronicles according to what they did with the high places where false gods were worshipped.

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In 1 Kings 12, we learn that Jeroboam was the first king that initiated idol worship in the divided kingdom.

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And then Nadab, Basha, Omri, Ahab, and Ahaziah all did the same. Please take a moment to listen to these chilling proclamations.

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Nadab did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin which he made

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Israel to sin. Basha did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he made

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Israel to sin. Omri did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more evil than all who were before him.

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And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. Ahaziah did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made

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Israel to sin. He served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done.

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So what does this have to do with your family? I want to draw six implications. 1.

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When we worship self, we sin against God. It's evil. Each of the verses said that the king did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord. It's so easy to view our lives in the gray, and yes, I believe that gray areas quote -unquote exist.

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There are places where we have the liberty to make a right choice that another person wouldn't make. However, when it comes to actual sin, there are no gray areas.

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It's either righteous or it's wicked. And when we choose to offer anything in our lives on the altar to self, it's an evil, wicked thing.

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Now, this makes sense when a person high -handedly sins against God. It's a conscious act of defiance.

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But what makes this even more troubling is the reality that we can unconsciously sin against God as well.

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This is where we get into a lot of trouble because I believe we have many high places in our lives and we don't even know it.

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How many decisions do you make in a day that are made because of how they'll affect you and about which you give little to no thought about God?

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I guarantee your children make many such decisions. This is why we made such a big deal about the motivation in our

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Teach Your Children to Obey series. If we're doing the right things in the right ways for the wrong reasons, well, we're sinning against God.

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Now, I could spend a lot more time on this point, but all we need to do is acknowledge the fact that every word we say, food we eat, item we buy, emotion we feel, thought we have, and desire we pursue that is not consciously and biblically worked out for God's greatest glory is likely a high place in our lives and is part of the reason we have failed family worship.

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Number two. When we worship self, we provoke God to anger. As with the first point, this one seems obvious on one side and counterintuitive on the other.

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It's easy to admit that God's not pleased by our high -handed sin, but we equally provoke Him to wrath when we do all the things that we just mentioned.

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Consider these verses. Ecclesiastes 10 .3 says, Even when the fool walks on the road, he lacks sense, and he says to everyone that he is a fool.

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The word sense refers to our mind, our heart, our spirit, the core of our being. In this context, to lack sense means that we are completely devoid of Christ's honor and glory, and all they're doing is walking down the road.

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And then there's Proverbs 21 .4 which reads, Haughty eyes and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin.

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There's a rule in many art forms, including storytelling and magic, that you introduce a concept and then take a second opportunity to solidify the concept, but then on your third opportunity, you break the previous conception.

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God says that haughty eyes are a sin, and then He says that the proud heart is a sin, and we naturally see a correlation and progression.

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And it makes sense because those sound bad even within a secular context. But then the Lord throws in the idea of plowing, and I've used this verse a lot because it's so powerful.

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The unsaved person cannot please God even when he's doing the most virtuous or noble of tasks.

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This is why Romans 8, 6 -8 says, I say all of this to say that the foolishness and wickedness and fleshliness of our personal high places displeases the

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Lord just as much as our direct disobedience. This should give us pause and not allow ourselves to give our families a bye just because no one's murdered anyone lately.

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We need to be intentional. We need to really search our hearts. Number three, when we worship self, we invite destruction into our lives.

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Solomon's example shows us that there are consequences for our sins. Now remember, there are primary consequences and secondary consequences.

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The secondary consequences, like going to jail and hurting ourselves and getting pregnant and the like, don't always occur when a person sins, but the primary consequences always happen.

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We always break fellowship with God. It always hurts us spiritually by separating us from God and His blessing, and it affects our relationship with those around us.

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Solomon and the other kings on the list experienced secondary consequences, but the worst ones were often not visible on the outside, and the same may be true of our family worship.

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As a whole, you and your spouse and your kids may be experiencing the primary consequences of a family who's involved in failed family worship.

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In order to rectify this, you need to identify the high places in your family and start addressing them biblically, and this is incredibly important to do in your life because, number four, when we worship self, we make it easy for our family members to do the same.

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Consider 1 Kings 15, 26 and verse 34, and then this 1 Kings 22, 52 through 53.

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Nadab did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father, and Basha did what was evil in the sight of the

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Lord and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and Nehaziah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam.

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He provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done. Our children learn from our sins better than we'd like to admit.

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This is uncomfortable for us to accept because it shows that our kids have a propensity for mimicking sin better than they do righteousness, and that we're not the amazing examples we'd like to think we are.

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If there are high places in my life, then not only am I not glorifying the Lord, but I'm also teaching my children to erect their own high places.

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But this point has an even more distressing reality. When we worship self, we make it easy for our family members to be even more sinful than we were.

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For this point, we need to be reminded of 1 Kings 16 .25 and verse 30. Our kids not only learn our ways, but they have an amazing ability to sin better than we did.

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This concept could take a whole episode to unpack, but for now let the painful reality motivate us to tear down our own high places and help our kids do the same.

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And lastly, number six. When our families worship self more than they worship God, it's failed worship because we're serving anti -gods.

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Our failed family worship may produce driven, capable, smart, achieving children, but their lives will fail spiritually because they'll be worshiping self and their gods are puny anti -gods.

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We humans cannot bear the divine weight and responsibility of doing God's job. That's why we did episode 22,

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Five Ways You Take God's Job. That's also why I constantly talk about the life -destroying sin of self -worship.

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It's at the heart of our every sin. The Mirage Christianity series was consumed with this. When we call

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God a liar and choose to follow our own hearts, we're dethroning Him, trusting ourselves and playing God.

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But we're anti -gods. We're pathetic, tiny little puny mortals. How can we expect that kind of worship to succeed?

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Consider James 4. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is it not the source of your pleasures that wage war in your members?

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You lust and you do not have, so you commit murder. You're envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

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You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures, you adulteresses.

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Now, this term, adulteresses, is not referring to people who cheat on their spouses. It's referring to self -idolatry that cheats on God.

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Consider all those terrible consequences of tolerating high places in our lives. So what's the fix?

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Now, normally I take the time to provide hope and the encouragement and set forth a plan to rectify the issue, and to a certain degree,

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I've already done a little of that. But the answer to failed worship is the focus of our third and fourth episodes in this series.

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So please join us next time. Share this episode with other parents who desperately want to parent the way

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God called and created them to parent, and download our free episode notes from Taking Back the Family. But I do want to end on a note of hope.

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Solomon and his kin failed because they worshipped themselves at the high places. All they had to do was tear them down.

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And to that end, I'll see you next time. Truth. Love. Parents is part of the

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Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's Word for the truth your family needs today.