(Godly Home) Part 10 - the Hearts of the Fathers Must Turn — 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. All right, let's turn in our Bibles to Malachi, chapter four.

Turning the Hearts of Fathers and Children

We want to read verse five and six. We want to continue in the direction here this evening of relationships. God is concerned about our relationship with our children. We're going to look at some awesome truths in verse six of our text.

They relate very closely to some of the needs of American men. Can I say it that way? Malachi chapter four, verse five and six says these words, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

There is a miracle taking place in this land of ours. It cannot be explained except God, because God is working in the hearts of men all over this land. Men are laying aside their professions and moving to a small little farm for the sake of their children so they can be with them and work with them and train them the way that they feel that God is telling them to train them.

Some of these men have spent tens of thousands of dollars to train for their profession and give up tens of thousands of dollars more to take a lesser occupation so that they can be with their children.

Only God can do such a thing is that it is a miracle. But then our God is a miracle working God. It shouldn't surprise us that he's doing such things in the hearts of men. Sometime ago, I met a computer engineer who told me his story.

He was a computer engineer for a very large company making seventy thousand dollars a year. God began to deal with him about his children. At first, he didn't know what was going on. But there he was on the thirty fourth floor in his office, one of those big, tall corporate buildings sitting in front of a computer day after day after day.

And as he was there doing his work, the still small voice of God just kept coming to him while he was there. What about your children? What about your children? And at first he didn't understand what God was saying.

But as he searched God's heart and this voice that kept coming to him, eventually he realized God was saying, I want you to make a change for the sake of your children. Now, he admitted it wasn't an easy thing for him to do.

And he had his wrestle with God on the whole issue. He got to get along with God. And you imagine how it went. But God, are you sure this is what you want me to do? I make seventy thousand dollars a year.

What about the security of my family? What about the house payments, Lord? What about all the money I put into the training that I had to do in order to get this job? All those things was going through his mind.

But by the time God got him shook down to nothing, he was on his face before God. And he said, God, I hear your voice. I'm willing to make a change for the sake of my children. And he walked away from that big job.

And today he's making wood products with his sons in a little shop somewhere on a little farm. Hallelujah. You say that's ridiculous. Well, you wait till he gets to heaven. See if it is. The first word that we want to look at here in our text is the word turn.

Repentance as a Radical Turn

The spirit of God is brooding over fathers just like this one that I just explained to you. He is jealous for the children. A jealous God is jealous for a godly seed. That's what's going on. That's why God's doing what he's doing.

A jealous Godly seed. Many of you men have heard this same still small voice calling you and some of you are here today because you heard it. Praise the Lord. Thank God for that. It is the Lord and he is pursuing your children.

So let's look at this first word, the word turn. It is a very radical word. We understand it. Well, it means repent, repent. That's what the word turn means here. Now we know what repent means. We understand the doctrine of salvation, except you repent.

You can't enter the kingdom of heaven. You can't do it. A man must repent, repent of his sins, turn from his old ways, turn to God's ways in order to be born again by the spirit of God. We know that word repent is a radical word when you line it up to salvation.

It means a 180 degree turn in mind and life. Amen. That's repentance. This word is no less radical when God uses it here in this scripture concerning our families. Repent means repent. Radical turn. That man that God was brooding over in that office, he repented and probably his boss scratched his head and thought he must be crazy when he sat him down and said, I'm going to quit.

You know what? I'm going to quit. Why are you going to quit? Is somebody offering you a better job? How much more do you want? No, no, I don't want any more money. I'm just going to get me a little farm and we're going to make picnic tables.

You're going to what? How much money can you make making picnic tables? That's how it is in corporate America, you know, that man repented. It was a radical change in his life. It cost him something. Bless God.

It cost him something. That's the first word. The second one is the word heart. He shall turn the heart. This word is the most important word in our texts. We must understand the depth of what God is saying when he uses the word the heart.

The Heart as the Center of Affections and Will

The heart is the most powerful part of our being, brothers and sisters. It is the seed of our emotions. It is a place where we love. It is the place where we desire. It is a place where we dream dreams.

It is the place where we set our goals. It is the place where we choose with our will to do what we do. It is the center of man's being and the most powerful part of man's being. And the God who made us knows that it's the most powerful part.

That's why he said, I'm the Lord, your God. Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all your heart. I'm God and I don't want half of it. I want it all. God knew it's the most important and the most powerful part of our being.

And God said, give me your whole heart and love me with your whole heart. Well, God wants the seat of our affections to be upon him because he is God. And then he wants them to be upon our children because they are the children that the Lord has given thy servant.

Think about it for a moment. If a man gets something in his heart, he can do just about anything if he gets it in his heart. God knew that. Think about the Tower of Babel. God looked down at the Tower of Babel.

He thought, oh, look at what they're doing now. What's going to stop them from doing anything that's in their heart? So God confounded all the languages so they couldn't get together in unity and mess the world up so fast.

Think about an Olympic athlete who says, I want a gold medal. He will do anything to get that gold medal. He will change his whole lifestyle. He will think of nothing else. He will not be worried at all about any sacrifice he makes.

He will eat, sleep and drink for that Olympic gold medal. He will run. He will practice. He will labor. He will push his body and his mind to the absolute limits. And when he can't push anymore, he'll push one more stretch yet because he wants that gold medal.

I tell you, when a man gets something in his heart, he can do anything he wants to. The heart is the most powerful part of our being. Brethren, this powerful heart is what God is taking issue with in this verse.

He wants the seed of our affection to be on him first of all, and then upon our family, which is our closest neighbor. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love thy neighbor as thyself.

Amen. There it is. So simple, so beautiful. Think with me. If a man gets it in his heart to love and nurture his children like the Olympian does when he wants to get a gold medal, what do you think is going to happen to that household?

That is exactly what happened to that man that was sitting in front of the computer making seventy thousand dollars a year. He got it in his heart to turn his attention on his family and nurture those children for God.

And nothing would stop him once that took place. That's what we need, brethren. That's the kind of heart we need to have. There is more teaching on the home in America than all the rest of the world put together.

Did you think about that? More tapes, more books, more seminars than you can ever, ever, ever be able to get to all of them. Yes. Look at the homes in America. We don't need more teaching, brothers. We need a heart change.

We need to repent. That's what's needed. All the teaching doesn't do any good if the heart doesn't turn. All it does is remind you again of the thing that you forgot. And aren't you glad that you got reminded again?

I'm telling you, there's something wrong in your heart. If you need to be reminded again and again and again to love your children and raise them for God, there's something wrong in the heart. You got a heart problem.

You don't need more teaching. All of us. I'm not going to tell you anything new this week. I guarantee it. You know it. The heart is the problem. The next one we want to look at is the word fathers. He shall turn the hearts of the fathers.

Fathers’ Responsibility for the Home

It doesn't save the fathers and mothers, does it? When God breathed out those words, he didn't breathe out mother. He breathed out fathers. The bus stops with us men. This may seem unfair at times, but God is clearly revealed in his word where the heaviest load of responsibility needs to lie and it needs to lie on us as fathers.

And I believe God knows that if the heart of the father gets its focus right, the mother will come running after him. I've seen this happen many times. The cure all for all this feminism is godly fathers who turn their hearts toward home.

The mothers are leaving home because the fathers left home. See, wait a minute. The fathers didn't leave home. Oh, yeah, they still live there. I know. But they left home. The mothers are leaving home because the fathers left home about two generations or maybe three ago.

They left. They went after something else. It took a couple of generations to catch up, but eventually the mothers looked at all and said, hey, I'm not staying home and do all this. Forget it. Put the babies in the child care.

I'm going to go out and make some money, too. I'm telling you, they follow them in. That's what they did. They follow them in. The fathers have sinned and left the focus of their children to pursue higher goals.

In quote, the fathers are the ones that that can break this curse. I do believe that if fathers would repent and turn back to their responsibility and turn their hearts back to their very children, I believe all the other things would fall into place in due time.

It may take some time, but it would fall back into place. I believe it. If the heart needs to turn, then there's something wrong, isn't there? I mean, if God says, I'm going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, that means the heart must be turned on something else.

I think it's safe to assume that the heart is turned away from the children and turned on to something else. Now, with that, issues come to mind, don't they? That heart that used to dream dreams and see visions is now dreaming about lesser things.

That heart, that most powerful heart that loves is now said it's love on lesser things. I would encourage you this evening just to open your heart to the Lord and say, Lord, where is my heart? God is calling us to radical repentance.

Repenting of Materialism and the American Dream

Lord, where is my heart? Maybe it's on materialism, serving men, seeking wealth and all the things that it'll buy. Maybe your heart is on the American dream. You know, that's what everybody is running after here in America.

They're running after the American dream. And I'm afraid many, many Christian men have just kind of gotten on the bandwagon. You know, oh, that's what you do in America. You know, the American dream, new house, two new cars, lots of grown up toys.

And it doesn't come cheap. I mean, it's expensive so much so that they got their wives to go out and get a job to pay for all this American dream. They have no idea they are tearing this nation into pieces while they're running after the American dream.

It won't last for another generation if it lasts that long. You may go all up in smoke. My career, corporate America has forced fathers to give up their children. I heard one the other day where a man was sat down by his boss in corporate America.

He was having some marriage problems and it was eating him up. And it ought to eat you up if you're having marriage problems. The boss sat him down and said, look, you either get a divorce and get another wife or you don't have a job anymore.

What was the boss saying? Look, we need to make money. You're not making money. You're not producing very well. You're not going up the ladder like you should. So get rid of that wife and go get another one and we'll go on making money together.

I don't know what that fella did, but he should have got up and stomped his foot and walked out of there. That's what he should have done. He said, you take your stinking money. I'm going to go home and heal my marriage and give my own testimony of failure.

For me, it was a ministry. I went to a Bible school. Man, they pumped us up there. They told us, oh, how are you going to be this great preacher and you're going to do this and you're going to do that.

No, I mean, we were all excited about what we were going to do for God. And I set out after that with everything I had. That was my goal. I had two children at that time. I went through all those things that I talked about the other day.

I held little Rebecca in my arms. I held little Daniel in my hands. I stood there all while I held those little children. I did my heart flip flop when I got ahold of those children. I thought they were precious and wonderful to me.

I thought this is the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to me. I have a son and I have a daughter. But my heart turned away from that focus on the ministry. And that's where I was when God got ahold of me and humbled me and brought me down and put me in the dust.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. But in the midst of the dust, he stuck me in my house for a whole year, all day long, every day for a whole year. And I discovered that my children were a bother, not a blessing.

But I was wise enough to listen to the voice of God. And God said, it's not right that your children feel like a bother to you instead of a blessing. And God dealt with my heart and helped me to see the wickedness of my wrong focus.

And I repented. I repented and God turned my heart to my children. Remember, the word is repent. The word is repent. The next word we want to look at is the word children. We spoke about the first love earlier in the series, but consider it again.

Restoring the Father-Child Relationship

And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children away from corporate America, away from the American dream, away from the money, away from the career, away from the hobbies, away from the entertainment, away from the sports, away from all of those things.

And on to the children again, back onto the children, the children, your children, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh. They have your blood running through their veins. They look like you. They act like you.

They talk like you. They have your nose. They have your ears. They have your fingers. They're your children. You see, relationship is the issue here with God. You represent God to your children and God is concerned about the relationship that you have with your children because you represent God.

How many times I've heard adults say, I see God as a God with a big stick in his hand waiting to hit me as soon as I did something wrong. That is a revelation of how they grew up in their home. Dad was a dad with a big stick in his hand.

And if you got out of line, he would straighten you out in short order. What a terrible picture of a loving God. God is concerned about relationship. Some fathers think, well, I'll do better. I'll get more consistent in my devotions.

I'll do better with the children. I'll try to have a little more time with them than I usually do. Listen, God is not trying to get you to do better in your devotions. He wants you to turn your heart.

If you determine you're going to do better in your devotions and you go home, it'll only last you a little while. But if your heart turns away from all those other focuses and it turns upon your children and all of a sudden the desire and the longing of that heart is toward your children, those devotions will take care of themselves and a whole lot of other things will come running along behind them, I guarantee it.

That's just the duty done out of obligation. God doesn't want that. He wants you to take care of your heart. God is behemoth about this. God has a controversy with fathers over the children. God said, I gave you children for prophets and Nazarites, and you've turned them away from that.

You know what God said? I'm greatly burdened by you like a wagon that's loaded over, down, loaded with weight. That's what God said to Israel. I gave you children for prophets and Nazarites for me, and you've turned them to other things.

God said awesome words. Let's go to the word heart again. The heart is the most powerful part of our being. But now we've shifted to another heart. Now it's a child's heart. But I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the heart of the child is the most powerful part of their being also.

It is the seed of their affections. It is a place where they love. It is a place where they give away to somebody else or something else. That's what the heart is. The hearts of American youth are set on other things.

You know how it happened? Every one of those American youth, there was a day when they were just a little boy or a little girl. And you know this scene. You've seen it in your house. They were a little boy or a little girl, and they came vying for the attention of their father.

They came wanting to show their father the little thing they drew for him to give it to him. They came wanting his approval. They came looking for his shining face. But father, he was one of those not now dads, not now, not now, not now.

And father's heart was focusing on something else. I don't have time to look at your silly little drawing. Don't you realize I want to make a million dollars? Well, you know how a little child is. They're very forgiving.

They're very loving. They don't turn around overnight. But eventually the child ran after that and ran after and ran after. Finally, he just, oh. And he went off to something else. He went and worshipped his peers instead of his dad.

He turned his heart toward rock music. He turned himself over to the in crowd and he took earrings and hung them in his nose and stuck one out of his tongue and all that kind of stuff. I tell you, American youth are crying out for their dads.

I know that's what's wrong, but they didn't just turn away for not. Those dads were too busy. I hope it's not that way with any of us. The heart is the place where they love and the place where they honor and obey and desire to please.

Also, by the way, it's that way with them, just like it is with us. Now let's look at the blessing that comes when a father hears the word of the Lord, the spirit of God brooding over his heart. Look at the mysterious blessing that comes.

How a Father’s Repentance Turns a Child’s Heart

This has happened so many times. It's so precious to hear the testimonies of fathers and mothers to share what God is doing in their children when they, as fathers and mothers, finally decided they're going to get right.

Guess what happens when a father's heart turns away from all of those other things and it turns it truly, truly turn 180 degrees and all of a sudden there's this outflowing toward the children. Guess what?

The children know it immediately. Something happened to dad. Do you know what happened to dad? No, I don't know what happened to dad. Do you know what happened to dad? I don't know, but something happened to dad.

He's acting different toward us, isn't he? Yes, he is. That's nice. Yeah, he is. And something mysterious begins to take place in the heart of a child when God helps dad to repent. All of a sudden, the heart of that child begins to turn back also.

Oh, it doesn't just happen overnight, but it begins to turn. And as the days go by and that child senses this outflowing from its father, it begins to turn away from all those other things and it begins to turn back toward the father.

You know, the illustration of homeschooling is a beautiful example of this. How many times I've heard parents say, we decided to teach our children at home. We just didn't know what to do with the Christian schools.

We surely didn't know what to do with the public schools. We didn't know what to do with our children. So we decided if we're going to give them a godly education, we're going to bring them home and train them ourselves.

And by the way, that's no little thing. That's quite a sacrifice to do. But guess what? Guess what has to happen inside of the parent's heart in order for that to happen? That heart must turn. And as that heart turns toward those children, the children begin to realize, all of a sudden mom and dad are very interested in me and what I'm doing.

And they're over here telling me how good I did on my paper. You got an A, my boy, good boy, good boy. Guess what happens? The children start turning their hearts. And I've heard so many parents say, all of a sudden, my children love me and respect me in ways that I never knew they could.

That's that inner dynamics of hearts turning to hearts. It's a mysterious blessing. So I'm here to tell you tonight, if things aren't going too well in your home, there's hope. There's hope. Listen, all of heaven is on your side, dad, mom.

If you turn your heart, all of heaven is on your side. Because guess what? He shall turn the hearts of the children to their fathers. It's not just you trying to get their hearts your way. If you turn your heart to them, all of heaven will turn loose and work the hearts of your children back to you.

There's hope for you. You don't need to despair, but you need to turn. You need to turn like the Olympian turns. You need to turn like that Olympic runner turned when he said, I will have that gold medal.

You need to turn and say, I will have my children's hearts. That's how it works. What flows from this two heart relationship that we're speaking about from the father's side, love begins to flow from the father's side.

A caring attitude begins to flow from the father's side out of love, discipline flows and teaching and time with the children. All these things begin to flow in the heart turns toward the children. From the children's side, love begins to flow back to the parents.

From the children's side, honor is there and respect. Obedience is there. A desire to please flows out of that heart because it's the most powerful part of a child's being. All of a sudden, all those things that dad couldn't figure out why they're not there, they're there.

Do you see how it works? These two working together produce a godly seed upon the earth. And God is pleased with that. Let me just say a word to you, children. If your father is one of those men who has been listening to the voice of God and you recognize my dad is turning his heart back toward home, I want to warn you, children, don't play games.

Don't play games. Don't you say in your heart, I'm not going to listen to my dad. I'm not going where he's going to go. Don't you do that. I want to warn you, all of heaven is on dad's side. The Spirit of God is going to be brooding over you also.

You won't just be fighting against your dad if you decide I'm just going to push my way around here. You won't just be fighting against your dad. You will be fighting against the Spirit of God. And that's a dangerous thing to do.

If you're one of those children, I would encourage you that you go to your father as your father goes to you and give your heart back to your dad and tell him, dad, do with me whatever you want. Guide my life.

Direct my steps. Oh, father, I'm sorry for making it hard for you to turn your heart back to the home. Please forgive me. Some years ago, we had a painful experience at our house. Daniel and Rebecca and Elizabeth, they were young people in our home and we were beginning to transit from, you know, little children in the home to young people in the home.

And by the way, you don't treat young people the same way you treat little children. The child training principles are different when they're young people. But things weren't going too well in our relationship with Rebecca and Daniel and Elizabeth.

The church was growing. The church was very big. I was the pastor of the church here. I was running myself ragged, trying to keep up with all the things and meet all the needs and preach the sermons and all those things.

And guess what? There wasn't enough time for those older children. And I knew something isn't right. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something isn't right. The flow is not there. I'm getting a wall when I try to communicate.

So finally, one day, mom and I, we sat those three older children down and we said, look, something's wrong. We don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. And we think maybe it's us. Please tell us what we're doing wrong.

You should have seen him. Rebecca looked at Daniel. Daniel looks at Rebecca. They all look back and forth to each other. Is it safe? You know, should we tell him? And I pled with him. I said, please, you tell us, please.

If we're doing something wrong, we want to know. Please open your heart to us. We want to change. Don't we make mistakes? So finally, they begin to open up their hearts to us, you know, and we got some corrections that evening.

The bottom line was, you're not taking enough time with your older children, boy. You're too busy. You're too busy meeting everybody else's needs. You're not meeting the needs of the young people that are in your house.

And through that experience and others that God worked in our hearts, I took a sabbatical for six months. I mean, I just backed away from all the ministry and just stayed home with my family. That's what I did.

That's how I corrected my ways. I repented. You know, I often wondered what would have happened that night when they opened up their hearts, if I would have done like some dads do. And sometimes I have done and said, now, look, you need a straight now.

I'm not the problem. You're the problem. You need a straight now. You need to quit doing this. If you stop doing this, everything would be OK between us. I wonder what would have happened to those three children.

I wonder where they'd be today if we had done it that way instead of just bowing our heart and saying we're wrong. Please forgive us. We're trying to learn. You know, we've never done this before. Would you please forgive us?

And they did. They gladly forgave us. And we took those six months and just spent time together and talked and laughed and shared and walked and did everything together for six months. And God healed the hurts that were there between us.

The Curse of Disconnected Fathers

The last word we want to look at here just briefly is the word curse. God says you better get this thing straightened out or I will smite the earth with a curse. Well, I'm here to tell you that's not some mysterious curse that happens.

That curse is in the disobedience. The curse comes through the disobedience. The curse comes through the lack of the relationship. And dear brothers and sisters, I think we would all agree that this land of ours is already smitten with the curse.

It's the curse of disconnected fathers and disconnected mothers. Look at all the troubles we have. The prisons are full and running over. They know what to do with them all. They let it out early because they don't have room for them all.

And guess what the people who work with the prisoners say? Ninety five percent of the prisoners hate their dads. You know what they call him? My old man. Yeah, my old man. What a degrading way to talk about your father.

But whose fault is it? Whose fault is it? Ninety five percent of them hate their dads. They sit there in bitter hatred toward their dad and rot in prison. Whose fault is it? Are you sure we have the right ones in prison?

The fathers have destroyed their sons through their neglect. Many times, that's all it was. Dear brothers, our fathers are sinned and we have followed their sin to some degree. And it's time that we repent and break the curse off of our lives and our families.

You know, men and women go their whole life long and never get a blessing from their fathers. Did you know that? There are men who go their whole life long and ladies also and never get a blessing from their father.

One time I know of men who have went to their father on their father's dying deathbed and said, Oh, bless me. Will you bless me, father, please, before you die? And the old dying man looks up at him and says, I'm sorry, son, I do bless you.

You have my blessing. I love you. You're a good son. All his life, that's what he wanted to hear. All his life, he wanted to hear those words. You are a good son, my boy, and I'm proud of you. You are a fine daughter and I'm proud of you.

And they never heard it once. Some time ago, I was in a meeting where a preacher was preaching on the subject somewhat like this. And in the middle of his meeting, he asked this question. He said, I would like to ask you, all of you that are in this meeting, how many of you in this room never heard your father say I love you one time?

I mean, when he said those words, my eyes perked up. I thought, now this is an important question. With my burden on the home, I thought I want to see how many hands go up. Ninety percent of the hands went up in that auditorium.

They never heard their father one time look him in the eye and say, I love you, my son. I love you, my son. Something is not right. Something is not right. And then he went on to say, look at that. He pointed to him.

He said, everywhere I go and preach in every church that I preach, I ask the same question and I get the same amount of hands. I tell you, we are suffering from the results of two generations of disconnected fathers, and most of us fathers don't even know how to be a father because of it.

God has to help us. But we must repent if we've been going down that same road and doing the same thing that dad did. It's time to repent and break our heart. If our children do not know that they live blessing of their father or their mother, it's time to repent.

I'm telling you, it's time to repent. There is a natural desire in every child, God given natural desire to want to please the parents. Isn't that right? How many parents have found it that way in your children?

It's there. It's just there. It's natural. It's God given. It's not spiritual. It's just natural. God put it in there. God deposited that in our children. You'd think we'd take advantage of that God given natural desire and fan the flames a bit, brothers and sisters.

But instead, many parents squelch this desire by neglect and nagging corrections and being too busy. Not now. Not now. Not now. I often hurt for the children of the two busy parents. Their zeal to please their parents is slowly put out.

Yet the Christian demand obedience and respect from their children. This is a gross perversion, brothers and sisters. You will pay me. You will respect me. You will honor me. Don't you know that the Bible says so or put your Bible down, put your Bible down.

That is a gross perversion. If your children do not know without a doubt that they live underneath your blessed, loving approval and you put your Bible down, you get right once instead of always telling them to get right.

That's my plea. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes. We're going to give an invitation this evening. We're going to sing just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I come.