- [Narrator] Welcome to Grace Digital presentation.
In this video, we will cover what occurs when fathers fail.
There are three God given responsibilities
each father has toward his family.
Number one, as a priest to intercede for them.
Number two, as a prophet to represent God to them.
Number three, as King to rule them
according to God's criteria of righteousness.
Now that we know this,
we're left with an important question.
If faithful fatherhood produces a blessed
and flourishing nation, what will occur to a country
whose fathers fail in their primary obligations?
In Deuteronomy 28, Moses provides a strong understanding
of what we may expect.
This section of Deuteronomy falls quickly into two parts.
In the first 14 verses, Moses notes all the advantages
that will come on God's people if they obey Him.
In the remaining 54 verses, Moses lists the curses
that will come on them if they disobey Him.
One verse in this latter section describes one of the curses
that will come on a nation whose fathers fail
in their duties toward their families.
"You will have sons and daughters,
"but you will not keep them
"because they will go into captivity." Deuteronomy 28:41.
The Hebrew words here indicate
that Moses is speaking to men.
The word beget, refers mainly to the father's part
in procreating children.
So this first is addressed primarily to fathers.
Not enjoying our children is a curse.
How many parents today enjoy their children?
Not a lot.
God made children the most significant blessing
he could give to men and women.
When fathers and mothers, especially fathers,
do not walk in the way of the Lord,
then their children are no longer a blessing, but a curse.
Since 1960, we in the Western world have seen millions
of kids go into different kinds of satanic captivity.
Those who are controlled by these things are in captivity
just as surely as if an invading alien army
had marched into the country
and carried them off as prisoners.
Why have millions of children gone into captivity?
We see the answer Deuteronomy 28.
Persistent rejection of God's righteous requirements,
especially in home and family.
Hebrew verbs and pronouns use different masculine
and feminine forms.
In Deuteronomy 28, all the verbs appear
in the masculine form.
God places the primary responsibility,
in other words, on men.
This does not mean women do not carry
their share of responsibility.
Indeed they do, but it is the breakdown of male leadership
that opens the way for all the other evils that follow.
In Malachi 2:7, the prophet points out
one primary responsibility that the father as a priest
has towards his family.
"For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge,
"because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty
"and people seek instruction from his mouth."
The priest is responsible for knowing the law of the Lord
and interpreting it to the Lord's people.
This also applies to a father as a priest.
His children and family should seek the word of the Lord
from his mouth.
What occurs if priests fail in the role?
God declares, "My people are destroyed
"from lack of knowledge.
"Because you have rejected knowledge,
"I also reject you as my priests.
"Because you have ignored the law of your God,
"I will also ignore your children." Hosea 4:6.
What a great message.
God is telling the Israelites that,
"I demanded you in priests
"but you rejected the knowledge you needed."
This was not secular knowledge they refused,
but knowledge of the way and the word of the Lord.
As a result, God no longer receives them as priest
and even vows to forget their children.
As a priest of his family, each father has the privilege
of doing what Job did,
to bear children before God in prayer continuously.
This saves them under the continuing failure
and protection of the Almighty.
But when a father fails to satisfy his intercessory service
as a priest, God says, "I will forget your children."
This severe warning of God has become vivid
to me these days.
Watching the numbers of young souls
on the streets in a city, you may ask,
"How many are forgotten by God, ignored by God,
"as they have no fathers to intercede for them?"
This terrible situation calls for a group
of committed intercessors who will stand in the gap
on behalf of such families.
But the intercessory prayer of a father
on account of his family is different.
No one else can fully take their Father's place.
His exclusive rights carry with him
special responsibilities.
Chronologically, the book of Malachi is the last part
of the Old Testament.
Additionally, the last word in this final book is curse.
If God had no more to say to people after the Old Testament,
His last word would have significant a curse.
Glory to God for the New Testament,
which gives the way out of the curse.
This is what God says in the last two verses
of the Old Testament.
"See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before
that great and dreadful day of the Lordcomes.
"He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children,
"and the hearts of their children to their parents;
"or else I will come and strike the land
"with total destruction." Malachi 4:5-6.
Well over 2000 years ago, God revealed to Malachi
through prophetic foresight, the most significant
and most crucial dilemma of our age,
delinquent fathers and unparented children,.
James 1:27, offers us a definition of what God considers
true religion.
"The kind that God our father accepts as pure
and faultless is this:
"to look after orphans and widows in their distress
"and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
What would happen if every Christian family
who takes the Bible seriously would take charge
for just one child who is in effect, if not in need?
That would include every child
without proper parental care or provision.
Indeed, it would require the sacrifice of some degree
of luxury and comfort.
Perhaps there would also be some financial offering.
But if this were done in the sense of Christian Love,
it would relieve a measure of suffering
so vast that most of us would try not to think about it.
Unfortunately, our unwillingness to think of it
does not make the demand any less real or any less urgent.
Be reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 25,
spoken to the goat nations.
"In as much as you did not do it," verse 45,
"as Christians, we shall be judged not so much
"for what we have done as for what we have not done."
Malachi's message was for people extremely devoted
in their religious practices, yet who cried
that the Lord did not acknowledge their prayers
as they demanded.
In response, the Lord pointed out their failures
as husbands and fathers.
God looked behind all their surface religiosity
and saw broken marriage promises
and husbands abusing wives.
God explained one primary purpose of monogamous marriage
as he originally ordained it.
"And did not he make one?
"Yet had he the residue of the spirit
"and wherefore one?
"That he might seek a godly seed.
"Therefore take heed to your spirit
"and let none deal treacherously
"against the wife of his youth." Malachi 2:15.
When man and wife live together in agreement,
according to the policies of scripture,
they're qualified to raise moral God fearing children.
And when a marriage breaks up, it is the children
who hurt the most.
God continued with a warning to all husbands.
"So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith
"with the wife of your youth." Malachi 2:15.
He followed this with an uncompromising statement
of His position towards divorce.
"For the Lord God of Israel says
that he despises divorce."
verse 16, "How will you respond?"
Those of us who belong to more traditional generations
can complain about generation next.
We can point out all their flaws and faults.
However, the crisis did not begin with them.
It is the older generations who are to blame.
Our generations have betrayed them, who have failed
to present the truth to them, who have failed
to teach them godly discipline.
Now God is judging us through our children.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus informed his disciples
that their duty to follow him
would concentrate people's attention on them.
Jesus was telling his disciples,
not only that he required them to be a source of light
in the blackened world, he was also telling them
just how their light was to shine through their good works
made visible to all.
Husbands and wives are to depict the relationship
between Christ and His church.
Second, husbands are to build families
that represent God's love as a father
to His believing people.
The Bible also reveals one good work God expects
from His people, to care for orphans and widows.
This condition is stated in many places in the Old Testament
and is re-emphasized in the New.
God's requirements may all be summed up in a single word
of fathomless sense, love.
This love is manifested in three main dimensions.
Number one, the reaching out love of believers
toward those who have no one else to love them,
the orphans and the widows.
Number two, the intimate love between a husband and a wife.
Number three, the protective love of parents
for their children.
If the modern Western church is a city set on a Hill
that cannot be hidden, we need to ask ourselves,
how do the saved appear to the non Christian world
all around?
Specifically, does the world see the church
answering her responsibility to show the divine love
among Christ and His church
and the fatherly love of God for His family?
We also need to ask, does the worldview the church setting
as an example, by how she cares for the widows and orphans?
These are issues that require an answer.
We cannot shrug our shoulders and disregard them.
Each person probably has to give their response.