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[0:00] Armed for battle. Psalm chapter 127. Open your Bibles if you... Well, actually, you can read here if you'd like to. I'll read off this as a matter of fact myself.

[0:11] Let's read Psalm 127 together. Now, if this is Christ's family church, this is probably a portion of Scripture that's familiar with you. Oh, by the way, how many of you are homeschoolers?

[0:22] We got homeschoolers in the crowd? Okay, we got a few of you. As a matter of fact, a good number of you are. This is the first message of a series of five that I have in my DVD series on building obedience into your child.

[0:35] And this is kind of an introductory, visionary message to give you a big picture of what's ahead for your children, for you and your children. Psalm 127. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

[0:53] Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It's vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep.

[1:09] Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.

[1:23] Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gate. Now this is a portion of Scripture probably most of you are familiar with.

[1:36] And I want to go through it just with you and point out some things that maybe you have not seen. The picture in this psalm is of a warrior preparing to do battle with his enemy.

[1:48] And the context of this particular portion of Scripture is the commission God gave to Adam way back in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1 and through Adam to you and to me and to all mankind.

[2:01] Now what was that commission? It was to rule for God here on the earth as his representative. First in the Garden of Eden and eventually over the whole earth.

[2:14] The assignment was to be undertaken in the power and authority of God himself. But it would not be easy because it would involve the defeat of God's mortal enemy, the rebellious angel Satan.

[2:31] Now Satan had challenged, we know from the Old Testament, the right of God to be God and had evidently established himself and his demons on the earth as their stronghold.

[2:44] Now in light of this idea here in Genesis, this is called, by the way, the dominion mandate. The psalmist implies in verse 1 that the battle to establish God's rule on the earth will include both offensive and defensive components.

[3:00] Unless the Lord builds the house, that's offensive. Unless the Lord guards the city, that's defensive. Both building and guarding are a part of our task as we seek to fulfill this dominion mandate.

[3:19] We're taking new ground from the enemy. That's building. And we're guarding what has already been built against Satan's counterattacks.

[3:31] Now, let's get one thing straight, says the psalmist. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding here. God has called you, as a member of mankind, to build and guard in your dominion task.

[3:46] Two-fold. Building and guarding. Now, many believers have not been aware that this task has been given to God's people. It's a new idea. Their Christianity has been limited, basically, to their personal salvation.

[4:00] They see their center. They know they need a savior. If I'm going to go to heaven and spend eternity with God, I need to be saved. So, when we, as earnest Christians, discover there's something more than this, there's something more than just being saved and going to heaven.

[4:16] There's actually a task. A task to do. When we discover that, building and guarding, we're actually involved in extending the kingdom of God over the earth.

[4:28] We set out, as good Christians, to obey God and accomplish this task. Because we want to serve the Lord with all our hearts. What I can sense in your congregation is this is a congregation of people who are serious about the Lord.

[4:44] A lot of young people are not. They go to church for social reasons. And I go to a lot of different churches. And the Spirit is not always like this. I can tell there's some serious action going on here.

[4:56] It's thrilling to me. But, when we first discover that, we set out to go for it. I'm going to go for it. And I'm going to do it with evangelistic programs.

[5:09] Church growth campaigns. And I'm going to get heavily involved in all kinds of other religious activities because I've got work to do. However, we don't hear what the psalmist is saying in verses 1 and 2.

[5:26] Let's look again, if I can make this happen. Let's go back to slide 2. Aha! I got it down, John. Very good. Back to slide 2. Now here's what he's saying.

[5:37] It doesn't matter how early you rise up. Or how late you stay up. How much effort you put into this.

[5:48] It doesn't matter how much you worry about not doing enough and feeling sorrowful about your past failures in building and guarding.

[6:00] Eat the bread of sorrows. Have you ever eaten the bread of sorrows? Listen, I am 73 years old. I've eaten a lot of bread of sorrows. Looking back over my life and looking at wasted opportunities and things I did not do that I should have done.

[6:14] He says it doesn't matter about that. It doesn't matter how sorrowful you feel. Your past failures in building and guarding, your efforts, it doesn't matter, are going to be in vain.

[6:28] It's vain for you to work hard. It's vain for you to eat the bread of sorrows. The psalmist is saying that it is this.

[6:40] The Lord himself who will do what he has called you to do because he realizes your complete inadequacy to build and guard successfully.

[6:52] So says the psalmist. It's vain for you to do that because the Lord builds the house and the Lord guards the city.

[7:05] Now, how can the Lord do that? How can he ask us to do something when he knows we're going to be failures at it? Okay, let's go on to slide number four.

[7:17] That says, this is how we know. Faithful is he that calls you to build and guard who also will do it.

[7:29] Philippians 2, chapter 2, verse 13. For it's God who works in you. It's God at work without your knowledge to change your will to will and then give you the power to do of his good pleasure.

[7:47] Now, when we discover this great truth and when God shows us that we indeed are his beloved, he loves you and he's called you to a mission and he's going to come in in your inadequacies and do it for you.

[8:04] What happens when we discover this? Back again to slide two. Whoops, I'm going the wrong way. Here we go. Slide two. He gives his beloved sleep.

[8:19] Now, what is sleep? Sleep is rest. It's going, I can rest. I can go to sleep.

[8:30] I can relax because I know God is the one who's going to handle this. realizing the truth of God's faithfulness both to will and to do of his good pleasure within us and then just believing it by faith, our task of being warriors who build and guard becomes natural, spontaneous, and even unconscious as God empowers us.

[9:01] Now, the rest of Psalm 127 explains how that happens. Is that something that's going on here with my clicker, John? My coat?

[9:14] Should I take my coat off? Let's do it. Let me take my coat off so I don't want to rub it. All right, there we go. Okay, God's provision of the warrior's weapons.

[9:31] Aha, here they are. Now, listen, nothing, now I'm talking about the words I love to use are natural, unconscious, and spontaneous because that describes the Christian life.

[9:41] When God is at work in you to will and to do, calling you and then doing it, I like to describe the Christian life as running downhill because when God changes your desires, it's not ought to, need to, and should.

[9:56] It's want to. I tell people, I say, look, don't witness to anybody until you can't keep quiet because if you're doing it because you ought to, need to, and should, you're nothing more than a used car safety.

[10:12] Don't go to church, for goodness sakes, until you can't stay away. Listen, if I lived in this neighborhood, I couldn't stay away because I want to be with you people.

[10:24] See, that's what we're talking about here. Now, what are the weapons? Here they are. Nothing is more natural and spontaneous than having children. Is that not right? How many of you know that?

[10:35] Listen, when God's people get together, children just happen. When descendants of Adam and Eve get together, they're going to be children. God designed life to reproduce itself, whether it be animal life, plant life, or human life.

[10:53] Now, verses 3 to 5 say that God gives us children as a reward. Not just because He loves us, although He does. And we want them for ourselves so we can scratch some itch or feel some emptiness or longing, and certainly, children do scratch an itch that we have.

[11:11] And they do fulfill a longing in our hearts. But there's something more than that. He is equipping us to do what He's called us to do as His warriors.

[11:22] to build and guard, to build the house of God and guard the city that has foundations in the very midst of His enemies.

[11:36] Now, these verses tell us so beautifully, I believe, how that's going to happen. By filling the earth with offspring, with children who have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and who themselves have caught the vision to establish the righteous rule of God on the earth.

[11:56] Now, that's what I do at homeschool conventions. What I do is I try to impress upon parents that, look, there are two parts to the education equation. There's the teaching part and you're learning how to teach, but is your child ready to learn?

[12:11] Do they want to receive from you? Education will not occur unless there is a teaching component and a learning component. Now, I've got a tough sell because everybody knows they need math, history, and English, but a lot of people don't even realize they need help on child training.

[12:30] And so I tell them this, I say, now I'm diverting a little bit here, I'm starting to babble, but this is important. I say, what if you could say to your kid, Billy, it's bedtime.

[12:46] Now, I want you to go upstairs, you're saying this in a normal tone of voice one time, I want you to go upstairs, brush your teeth, put your pajamas on, and I'll come up and let you goodnight. I'll be up in ten minutes.

[12:59] Go ahead. So Billy says, yes, daddy. He goes up the stairs, brushes his teeth, puts his pajamas on, climbs in bed, and waits for you. Does that happen in your home?

[13:12] We've just been staying with Jill's nieces, and they have six delightful, children. But that time is war zone. And an hour later, after the first command, the two mothers, generally it's the mothers, stumble back downstairs and collapse on the couch and say, man, now that doesn't need to happen.

[13:34] And I can give these parents at these conventions principles from the Bible. And this is what I do. Five sessions this weekend, different ideas. From the Bible, all from the scriptures about how you can train your weapons of war.

[13:49] Because if weapons of war are not trained, they're going to be no good in the battle. So, that's basically what I do. But, God's given these children to us for a purpose.

[14:03] Now, the picture the psalmist uses here is that our children are like the arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior. Now, what does that mean? It means that although our children are the primary weapons God has given us to do what He's asked us to do, they obviously are not ready when they come out of the womb.

[14:23] Now, I believe there are three necessary stages as parents that we're going to go through as we learn how to engage our weapons in the battle. In other words, if we are to build and guard successfully in the world, we must first get our weapons ready.

[14:37] So, the first stage in the process is preparing our arrows. Now, in the psalmist's day, a warrior couldn't go to the local sporting goods store and buy ready-made bow and arrow and quiver of arrows.

[14:54] He couldn't do that. He had to make his own. Now, Jill, my wife, discovered that a few years ago. We had a, our grandson was about 12 or 13 years old and we live in the country and she thought this would be a great time for him to have a bow and arrow set.

[15:09] So, she went to the local Target store in Spokane, which we live about 65 miles north of Spokane. So, she went to the local Target store in Spokane and said, I'd like a bow and arrow set.

[15:21] And the guy that was what, this is the Christmas season so the guy was probably a part-timer. He's probably a college student about your age. He drew himself up to his, remember, we live on the left coast and this is a relatively liberal area out there.

[15:36] I mean, really liberal. So, he drew himself up to his full height and he said, we don't carry weapons at Target. So, Jill looked at him and she said, you mean this is a Target store and you don't have weapons?

[15:56] Well, in the psalmist's day, the warrior did not have Target stores that he could go to. What he had to do is prepare his own bows and arrows.

[16:07] He had to make his own. And preparing his arrows, he started with as straight a sapling as he could find and then began to work with it. Now, I got on the internet and I found these and this is exactly the picture I wanted.

[16:20] I wrote the guy whose webpage this came off of, some kind of a hunting thing or something. And I told him what I was going to do and if I could use it. He said, oh yeah, but by all means, use my stuff.

[16:32] So, this is a picture of taking crooked arrows, molding them and shaping them and look at the arrows at the bottom. They're straight. So, he straightened the arrows, attached the feathers to further ensure accurate flight and finally added the metal or stone tip for maximum effectiveness.

[16:52] Now, God is starting to fill a lot of your quivers with arrows. I can see them in the room. Sometimes they're loud. They're noisy little arrows. But he's given you arrows and he's given you the job to get them ready.

[17:05] You've got the task to do that. Just as this guy is doing up here. Now, you have approximately 20 years to get the job done. It's a job that doesn't happen immediately.

[17:15] You can't do it quickly. It takes a long time to do it. Starting early makes the task much easier. If you start, if you understand this and understand what you're doing, when you first have your children and you start early, using those biblical principles of child training, the job is basically done by the time you're five, six years old.

[17:36] The basic controlling the child is seeing that rebellion broken in his heart. But it's never too late to get your arrows ready as long as they're still in your home.

[17:48] The arrow preparation certainly includes education so that all the talents and abilities God has built into these young weapons of war are maximized. But also, discipline, character training is essential so they will first be able to absorb the education that you're giving them and then be able to implement it effectively in their lives.

[18:09] That's the whole idea. It doesn't matter how good a teacher you are or how much good character you want to build into their lives. If they're not listening to you, it doesn't do any good. It's pointless.

[18:19] So, what you're hearing today as I mentioned is the first of the five part message in my DVD series that I provide Gospel Parenting is the name of my organization that provides what the Bible teaches on providing that discipline and character training.

[18:37] Now, part of that preparation our arrows need warheads or tips that will destroy the target. The tip of our arrows is the gospel of the grace of God.

[18:49] worked into the hearts of our children so that the life that the gospel produces flows out of them like a river of living water touching all with whom they come in contact.

[19:04] Now, let me ask you, if that is occurring, will they need to be told that they must be an example to the world? That they must be world changers? That they must witness to the non-Christians around them?

[19:19] Listen, if the river is flowing, you can't cork it up. It cannot be stopped. It's impossible to keep quiet when one fully understands what happened at the cross.

[19:35] When our children are experiencing the freedom of the true gospel, of the unlimited grace of God, they are arrows with atomic warheads.

[19:45] Paul says in Romans 1 that the true gospel is the power of God unto salvation and against which the gates of hell will not prevail.

[19:58] So, after the preparation of the arrows comes, aiming the arrows. Now, it does not matter how perfectly prepared our arrows may be. if our aim as a warrior is faulty, they will not be as effective as they could be.

[20:17] And when you aim them, you are imparting your vision for the battle to them. The vision of extending the kingdom of God from pole to pole on the earth in whatever endeavor your child pursues.

[20:31] pursuits. I'm certainly not talking some kind of full-time Christian work. I'm talking about being a doctor, a teacher, a construction worker, even a ditch digger.

[20:47] Two guys were digging a ditch. Guy walks by and looks at the first guy. The first guy is looking at his watch. Watch out. Watch out.

[21:00] It's kind of mumbling under his breath like this. So the guy said, what are you doing? Ah, she said, I'm just digging a ditch. So he walks to the other guy, the guy next to him.

[21:11] He's going, whistling, whistling, singing, singing, whistling. It's obviously overjoyed. The guy says, what are you doing? He says, I'm building a cathedral.

[21:25] What are you doing? Are you just changing dirty diapers, blowing snotty noses? Trying to keep up with kids? Trying to wrestle them to bed? Are you just digging a ditch?

[21:38] Are you building a cathedral? I'm telling you this morning, you are building a cathedral. You are preparing weapons of war for the battle. So that's the aim.

[21:50] We've got to give them the vision. It's the vision of seeing Satan's defeat at the cross experienced in time as we build and guard. You know, people say, well, Andrews, that's a ridiculous idea.

[22:02] Look at the newspaper. The world's getting worse and worse. And I'm going to share some stuff with you in just a minute. But I want you to know that's called newspaper exegesis. We exegete the newspaper and we figure out what's happening in the world instead of going to the Bible.

[22:18] The Bible says the gates of hell will not prevail against the advance of the church. That's what the scriptures teach. So the fact is we've got to get out of the newspaper and get our noses in the Bible to find out.

[22:31] Now, next is releasing the Bible. Releasing the arrows. Here we go. Releasing the arrows. Prepared? You've gotten them ready over 20 years.

[22:45] You've aimed them by imparting the vision of the purpose for family. The whole reason for having family. The foundational reason. Not that the other reasons are not valid.

[22:56] They are. But this is the foundational reason. You've prepared them. You've aimed them. And then when they get married, they are released. That's the appropriate time, officially.

[23:09] When they get married and leave your home. The arrows are released to fly into the next generation, leaving completely our control as parents. If we've done our job, they will extend our influence far beyond our own lifetimes.

[23:24] If we have prepared our arrows, straightened them by building character into their lives, added feathers that ensure true flight by our sacrificial love, arming them with the warhead tip of the gospel of the grace of God, that's the power of God into salvation, and then aiming them by imparting the vision of man's purpose, then the house of God will be built and the city of God will be guarded by their lives.

[23:51] They will fly straight and true and inflict a mortal blow on the devil's heart. Now, let me give you a historical example of a family as a weapon for God's ultimate victory on the earth.

[24:09] Jonathan Edwards was a great Puritan preacher and one of the leaders of the Great Awakening in the 18th century. He and his wife Sarah had 11 children, all of whom lived to adulthood, which was really an unusual blessing in that particular time.

[24:22] There was a lot of infant mortality. They had 11 kids. They all lived to adulthood. Edwards' posterity is an example of the impact on the battle that straightened and properly pointed arrows can make.

[24:37] Now, there was a biographer named Elizabeth Dodds who wrote this of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards' family. She wrote this sometime early in the 20th century. Their 11 children have been a gift to American cultural history.

[24:52] In 1900, a reporter tracked down 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards. He found that they included 13 college presidents, 65 professors, two graduate school deans, 100 lawyers, 66 physicians, 80 holders of public office, including three senators and three governors of states.

[25:15] Members of this clan had written 135 published books and the women were repeatedly described as great readers or highly intelligent. These people seemed also to have had a talent for making money.

[25:27] Their numbers included a roster of bankers and industrialists. Of course, there were platoons of missionaries. The report asserted, the family has cost the country nothing in pauperism, in crime, in hospital or asylum service.

[25:42] On the contrary, it represents the highest usefulness. What a heritage. The influence of Jonathan Edwards has been powerfully felt in the battle to build and guard the kingdom of God for 250 years as a result of the 11 arrows that he prepared, aimed, and released.

[26:07] Now, do you see that having children, even well-trained children, is not enough? Without a vision of the task of defeating God's enemies and extending the rule of Christ over the earth, we're simply admiring the sharp, straight arrows in our quivers.

[26:23] Hey, look at my arrows. Mine are better looking than yours. Mine are straighter than yours. Well, arrows are not, I'm not made to be admired, they're made to be released.

[26:36] Now, what will happen as the church begins to get a vision of the battle before us and the part we are to play in it? What will happen as we begin to impart this vision to straighten, aimed, and armed arrows and then we release them into the next generation?

[26:55] Now, some tell us that the situation in the world is hopeless, that we live in a post-Christian era there's nothing left to do but wait in our Christian ghettos with our grocery bags for Jesus to come back and rescue us.

[27:09] But let me share with you what is already happening in the last 20 years. In the book Megashift, written by a guy named Jim Rutz, he explains how after traveling 10 years around the world and investigating the state of Christianity, he relates how the fact that vital committed Christianity is exploding in non-Christian countries today, I'm sorry, non-Western countries today, while remaining stagnant or actually regressing in Europe and the United States.

[27:47] This is what Rutz says in his book and by the way, I've read this book a couple of three times, it's been out about probably eight years now, but this had a powerful impact on me, it's called Megashift by Jim Rutz.

[27:59] Before the mid-1980s, Christians were growing about 2% a year, barely above the world population growth rate. Now God has stormed onto the scene like a tornado.

[28:12] A growing core of Christianity whom Rutz calls apostolics, and by that he means fully committed Christians, like you guys. You're a group of what Rutz would call apostolics, that crosses theological lines and includes 707 million born-again people who are increasing by 8% a year.

[28:35] These core apostolics are a powerful mix of charismatics, Pentecostals, and evangelicals whose main distinction is that they are in expanding, connected, and easily countable networks.

[28:50] Now he goes on to say, up until 1960, now get these figures, you've got to kind of follow these in your mind, I didn't write these down. Western evangelicals, Caucasians, this is at 1960, Western Caucasians outnumbered non-Western evangelicals, mostly Latinos, blacks, and Asians, by two to one.

[29:10] In other words, two white Christians to one non-white Christian in 1960. As of 2000, non-Western evangelicals, had shot ahead by four to one.

[29:24] Non-whites, four to one, in terms of being an apostolic, four to one over whites. By 2010, it will be seven to one.

[29:35] Now you may not know this, but in Latin America, in Asia, and Africa, in the southern hemisphere, revival is everywhere. And these are, his figures back that up.

[29:46] In the self-centered West, where we think everything important is happening, we don't see what God is doing around the world. I've read several books about the illegal underground Chinese church, and its amazing growth in the very midst of persecution.

[30:06] They have instituted some kind of incredible church growth campaign in China. I don't really understand it. but it seems to be working, as there are now conservatively over 100 million underground illegal Christians in China who are in danger of losing their lives every time they meet together.

[30:31] Now how have they made their churches so user-friendly? What can we learn from them to grow church in such an explosive way?

[30:41] Is that not what we want to do in the West? We want to grow our churches. I talked to one pastor one time. My goal is to have a mega church with my name on the church.

[30:53] That was his goal. He wanted to have a mega church. This guy happened to be an evangelist, and he was good. And people screamed into his church and screamed right out after about a month out the other door.

[31:05] He could get them saved, but he had nothing to offer to them. But he wanted to have a church growth campaign. He should have looked at the Chinese. Now, first of all, how about meeting time?

[31:16] That's really important, isn't it? We actually meet at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and we feel really put upon in our church because that's when the old people want to take a nap. And even if I'm speaking, I don't speak very often, but when I do speak, I want to take a nap while I'm speaking.

[31:31] So that's a terrible time because we need to meet at 1030 like you guys do. That's the time you meet. Certainly, the Chinese must meet at the right time. That must be crucial.

[31:43] They must have a time, don't they? That's convenient for all to make it easy to get to church. Well, here are the facts. They meet at all hours of the night, generally after midnight and before dawn, in order to be sure the government is not aware of their meeting.

[32:02] Okay, let's go on to the next slide. Have I missed one? No, that's a picture of a Chinese church meeting in a basement. Now, you can't tell it's dark outside, but it probably is.

[32:17] How about publicity? Radio? Newspaper? Location? All right, but certainly everyone must know where they are meeting. No, they meet in varying secret locations.

[32:30] They change the location. They don't meet the same place twice. They risk imprisonment and even death by attending. transportation. How about a bus program to be sure the kids come?

[32:43] Certainly the Chinese must have to have 100 million underground Chinese. Certainly there's got to be a bus program. They come by bicycle in all weather and hide the bikes in the woods away from the meeting place so spies will not find them.

[32:57] Pretty user-friendly. Huh? This is a Chinese are they've got the secret here. User-friendly. Do you think they have an espresso machine in the foyer so I can have my morning coffee?

[33:10] Now you guys don't do that in Atlanta but in Seattle all the mega churches have espresso machines and usually little cafes so you can kind of come and enjoy your espresso and just really make it comfortable to come to church.

[33:25] Now God is using his church around the world to build and guard in the midst of unbelievable persecution. And he's winning in time no matter what the prophets of doom may say.

[33:37] And we have the privilege of participating with him. Fellow warriors we are at war. It is time for you to arm yourself for battle.

[33:48] Now you may be saying Robert how can I arm myself? I've blown it. It's already too late. Most of you are young parents so you're not saying that yet.

[34:00] But if you have teenagers that aren't quite towing the line you may be saying it's too late. I've already blown it. I've been a failure. My kids are rebellious teenagers or they're grown and gone with no interest in the vision you've laid out.

[34:15] It certainly hasn't gone as I had anticipated. But I want you to know this morning in the providence of God you are right on schedule. It is never too late.

[34:28] You have simply experienced what Martin Luther calls the adverse work of God in your life. He has tailor made your circumstances what may seem to be failure to get you ready to be his warrior.

[34:43] Ask the Lord to show you what you've done, what you failed to do, the depths of your sin against your children by not loving and disciplining them properly, by being harsh and lenient rather than firm and compassionate, by not imparting the vision of their purpose in life to them.

[35:03] Ask God to show you your sin, not theirs. Now here's the sticky place. The temptation will always be to look only at your children's sin and not your own.

[35:16] Have they sinned? Yeah, they have. There's always plenty of sin to go around. Yes, but it's God's job to convict them and change their hearts. Your job as a parent is to mold their conduct by love and firm discipline.

[35:31] not to change their hearts. That's God's job. So, be ruthless with yourself, not with them. Then go to them and repent to them for what you have done and tell them that by God's grace, you're not going to give up on them.

[35:47] But I'm going to be faithful to train you diligently with biblical discipline. Or you may be saying something totally different right now in your mind. This is what I would have said if I had heard this message myself when I was a young parent some 30 years ago when my children were still in my home.

[36:06] Wow, Andrews, that's a great message. This message just reinforces what I thought all along. I am doing a rather remarkable job of parenting.

[36:18] Just look at my children. Little did I know that I was exactly like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable in Matthew 19.

[36:29] The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee looked at the poor tax collector whose children were probably completely out of control and thanked God.

[36:42] If you read that with discernment, you see the Pharisee was thanking God for the wonderful work he had done in his life. He's thanking God for all he has done to make him so righteous in all that he did, including training his children to be little Pharisees just like him.

[37:00] So, no one is excluded from the psalmist's warning that only God can build and guard in your family. As you repent for the sin in your heart, either the obvious failure that you can plainly see, or the subtle sin of pride and self-righteousness that is very difficult to see.

[37:20] Self-righteousness is endemic in the homeschool movement. Because what we do is draw our skirts around ourselves and thank the Lord that we are not like those poor public school urchins that have their pants down below their rears, tattoos all over their bodies.

[37:40] We thank the Lord that our kids are not like that. Now, listen, you can't do this repentance by the numbers. You can't say, okay, Andrews, I see what you said, I'm going to repent, but I don't really want to.

[37:52] Yeah, okay, maybe I can do it by the numbers, and maybe if I turn the crank, one, two, three, four, and turn the crank, something good is going to come out. You can't do it because you ought to, need to, and should. You can genuinely repent only if God opens your eyes and shows you your sin.

[38:09] And when He does, and He will, simply trust the Mighty One who comes in on the wings of repentance and faith to save to the uttermost.

[38:19] God has exposed me in the last six or eight years. I've been in the ministry for 50 years. I've left a trail of destruction behind me everywhere I've gone.

[38:30] I didn't see it. It was always somebody else's fault. Over the last eight years, I've had a chance to go back again and again to people that I hurt, that I injured, that I drove away because of my arrogance, and say to them, please forgive me.

[38:45] And now some of my closest friends are guys that were my ends. As we apprehend this message, and then prepare, aim, and release our arrows, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, and the gates of hell will not prevail against our attack.

[39:12]  Hallelujah. Let's pray.