Grace to You Weekend

Phil Johnson: Welcome to Grace to You Weekend, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I’m your host, Phil Johnson. What sort of person do you want your son to become? What are your hopes for your daughter? How do you help them achieve those goals?

Conversely, how do you keep your child from rebelling against your authority and making sinful choices and picking the worst of friends and handling money foolishly? Well, in view of Father’s Day, John MacArthur will answer those parenting questions today.

John’s message is called "Crucial Lessons for a Wise Father." Of course, even if you’re not a father, I think you’ll appreciate what you’re about to hear. It’s a message that will show you how to encourage, how to pray for your dad and the fathers you know. So now here’s John MacArthur.

John MacArthur: We have a responsibility as fathers to our sons particularly. Sons who tend to be for the most part more rebellious than daughters because they are the ones given by God leadership roles and capacities. If we will faithfully teach our sons, they will by example and precept lead the women as well.

Where you have a plurality in the nation of godly fathers, they will impact the mothers. And where you have godly sons, they will impact the daughters of the next generation. And so the high priority of Scripture then is that fathers teach their sons and thus raise up a generation of godly leaders.

Because God has ordained this and because God wanted us to be sure that it was followed carefully, God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gave a manual for fathers to use on their sons. A basic resource book. That book is the book of Proverbs. And I want to invite you to turn to it if you will right now, and we are going to be looking at the first 10 chapters of Proverbs in a very general sense.

And I would like us to look at these first 10 chapters and just pick and choose the elements that are here that I think make up 10 crucial lessons a faithful father must teach his sons. Lesson number one: Teach your son to fear your God. Fear your God. In chapter 1 and verse 7, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," and chapter 9 verse 10 says "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." But everything starts with fearing God. Teach your son, "Son, fear your God."

Lesson number two: Son, not only fear your God but guard your mind. Guard your mind. Third great lesson: A father must teach his son, "obey your parents." Obey your parents. All through this entire section, these statements about "hear my son, your father’s instruction" are repeated.

There’s a fourth principle, and this must be taught as well, very, very important. A father must teach his son, "select your companions." Select your companions. This is a father’s duty. Son, fear your God, guard your mind, obey your parents, select your companions.

Fifth: Control your body. Any witting father who has any sense at all realizes that young men are going to develop passions that can lead them into tragedy upon tragedy unless they learn how to control their body, their bodily desires. And as you get into this section, this is the dominant theme throughout these first few chapters of Proverbs. Go to chapter 2 for a moment, verse 16.

This is repeated and we don’t have time to go into all of it, but I’ll give you a little sense of what the writer says. 2:16, he’s talking about wisdom and wisdom alone—that is the wisdom of God, spiritual wisdom that a father is supposed to teach his son—is able to deliver you from the strange woman.

What does the word "strange" mean? Foreign. Why do you have to worry about a foreign woman? Because she’s away from home. What does that mean? Well, she’s away from her husband. She’s away from her family. She’s away from her friends. She’s away from accountability. And so she’s the out-of-town woman, if you will.

And it’s real easy for her to act any way she wants because the constraints are off. You beware of that roaming woman who is away from the point of her responsibility. Beware of the adulteress who flatters with her words, that leaves the companion of her youth—that’s her husband—and forgets the covenant of her God—that’s her marriage vow.

Beware of her because her house sinks down to death and her tracks lead to the dead. Why? Because adultery by biblical prescription required the death penalty. She’ll bring you to death. Teach your son: keep mentally away. Don’t go to certain places in town.

Don’t get caught in certain compromising situations. Keep your hands to yourself. Stay away from women like that. Guard your feet, guard your eyes, guard your ears. Teach your son that. Control his body for purity, and he’ll be a delight to you and blessed by God.

There’s a flip side of that. You say, well, if you teach him that too strong, then when he gets married, he won’t appreciate the joys of marital sex. So you have to balance it. Point number six: Teach him, "Son, enjoy your wife." While it is forbidden prior to marriage, it is exalted afterwards.

Teach him the beauty and the wonder and the blessedness of a gift of a wife and teach him to enjoy his wife. And you will teach him best if you enjoy yours. The wise father—what is he doing? He’s saying to his son, "fear your God, guard your mind, obey your parents, select your companions, control your body, enjoy your wife." Those are the key lessons.

Let me give you just a few more. Number seven: Watch your words. Watch your words. Teach your son to be careful how he speaks. Chapter 4, verse 24. "My son," he says in verse 20 then in verse 24 he adds, "put away from you a deceitful mouth, put devious lips far from you."

Make sure you don’t speak lies. Make sure you don’t speak hypocritically. Make sure you don’t speak perversely. Make sure you don’t speak deceitfully. Speak pure true words. Certainly one of the things that I grew up with was that lesson.

I am about as far away from using any curse word or one remotely related to a curse word as any human being on the earth because I had my mouth washed out numerous times for words I didn’t even understand or pronounce correctly.

My mother used to wash out my mouth with Fels-Naptha soap if I came home and said, "Daddy, what does blank mean?" In went the soap. I have what’s called aversion therapy. We have passed that on to our children so that what comes out of their mouth is the word hopefully of the righteous.

Proverbs says the lips of the righteous speak wisely. The lips of the righteous are a fountain of life and a tree of life. The lips of the righteous are like choice silver. They’re satisfying, they feed others, they bring healing and deliverance.

They are patient, kind, wise, truthful, honest, pure, soft, gentle, slow to anger, and are mouthpieces for the Lord. Teach your son to watch his words. Chapter 5 verse 2: "your lips may reserve knowledge." Chapter 6 verse 12: "stay away from the one who walks with a false mouth."

Chapter 10 is magnificent. Look at verse 11: "the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life." What a great statement. Verse 13: "on the lips of the discerning wisdom is found." Verse 14: "the mouth of the foolish ruin is at hand." Quite a contrast.

Verse 18: says "he who conceals hatred has lying lips." "He who spreads slander is a fool." Don’t do that. Don’t lie, don’t slander. It’s another thing we taught our children was never to lie. Our children—and I am sure this is correct, and Patricia and I have talked about this in recollection—never lied in their life that we know of more than once.

Because the first time we caught them in a lie, there was a major unforgettable event that took place. Which event lasted long in their memory and it told them in effect that is a very bad thing to do and attached to it is immense pain. They seemed to get the message.

Teach your children to speak the truth. Verse 19: "when there are many words transgression is unavoidable." Teach them not to always talk. "He who restrains his lips is wise." "The tongue of the righteous is as choice silver." It just goes on like this.

Teach them to watch their words. To watch their words. That’s a major matter of wisdom. The mouths of fools pour out endless speech, crooked speech, foolish speech, violent speech, hateful speech, malicious speech. Strife, ruin, slander, belittlement, gossip, disgrace, scorching fire, mischief, perversity, on and on it says in Proverbs. Fathers teach your children to watch their words.

Number eight: Teach your sons, "Son, pursue your work. Pursue your work." Teach your boys how to work, father, by word and example. "Look at the ant," he says in chapter 6. He’s giving this lesson to his son. "Son, go to the ant," verse 6 in chapter 6, "and look at this ant, observe her ways and be wise. Which having no chief, officer, or ruler."

The first thing you want to do is teach your children how to work without a boss around. Even an ant does that. Now your children will work if you stand there with a whip, but the issue is will they if you won’t? Because they’re going to have to in life.

And they also need to be taught how to plan ahead. The ant even knows to prepare her food in the summer, anticipating the coming winter. She gathers her provision in the harvest. Teach them to work. "How long will you lie down, O lazy son? When will you arise from your sleep?" Get your children up.

And they’ll say, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest." Sure, and your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. You’re going to make yourself poor if you don’t learn how to work. Teach them to pursue work.

A sluggard is a lazy man. He’s just an ordinary man really with too many excuses, too many refusals, too many postponements. According to Proverbs, the lazy man will suffer hunger, poverty, failure. Why? Because he sleeps through the harvest.

He wants but he won’t work. He loves sleep, is glued to his bed, and will follow worthless pursuits trying to get rich quick. On the other hand, the man who pursues his work earns a good living, has plenty of food, is rewarded for his effort and earns respect even before kings, it says in chapter 22 verse 29.

Teach your sons to pursue their work. So very important. Chapter 10 verse 4: "poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich." "He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully."

Teach your son to work and to plan ahead in his work. Now, now that he’s working, there’s a ninth lesson he needs to learn. Here’s another one. "Son, manage your money. Manage your money." Go back to chapter 3 for a moment and among these repeated lessons is this one and there are some basic principles that I would draw to your attention.

Verse 9: Here’s principle number one with money. "Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce, so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine." In other words, if you are generous with God, He will be generous with you.

So honor the Lord with your money. Teach him how to manage his money. Lesson number one is to give from the top, from the firstfruits to the Lord. All of the money is to honor the Lord. He’s to use all his money to honor the Lord. All of it.

Teach him how to give. If you’re a mediocre giver, if you’re a part-time giver, that’s what he’ll be. And as you have forfeited the promised blessing of God, so will he. And so you sentence your son to a lifetime of the kind of thing that you’ve had.

If you want your son to know the fullness of the blessing of God and all of it poured out on him, then teach your son how to give God generously. You see, what we do as fathers is simply produce the next generation. And it either moves up or it moves down.

The positive thing: teach him to honor the Lord with all his money. That whatever he does with it, it is to honor the Lord. Now let me flip that over, there’s a negative thing too. Chapter 6 verse 1. And this is a very good lesson and there’s much more here than initially meets the eye.

Verse 1 says of chapter 6, "if you have become surety for your neighbor, have given a pledge for a stranger." Now listen. If you’ve co-signed. Now the Bible says you should never do that for a stranger. Teach your son not to do that.

Teach your son that God has given him his resources for him to use wisely as a steward of God, not to become liable for another person whose behavior he cannot control. In other words, make very wise investments and make sure you control.

Don’t co-sign for a stranger so that on his default, you become liable. That’s the point. Why? Because you are given money as a steward of God and you must use it at your discretion as the Lord leads, not have it snatched out of your hand by the discretion of someone else.

You understand? Control your money to honor the Lord and then don’t get involved in get-rich-quick schemes that are going to put you in a position of liability. And if you get caught, look how he says to deal with it. Verse 2.

If you’ve been trapped because you made some promise with your mouth, then do this, my son, deliver yourself. Get out of it. Don’t let it linger. You get out of it. Since you’ve come into the hand of your neighbor, go humble yourself and importune your neighbor.

You know what you do? You get down on your face and your knees, you humble yourself and you beg and you negotiate a settlement. You do it immediately, you get that thing off your back so that it doesn’t go on and on and on.

Settle it, get it done with, humble yourself, don’t even give sleep to your eyes, don’t give slumber to your eyelids until you get yourself out until like a gazelle from a hunter’s hand or a bird from the hand of a fowler.

Get out of that mess, get it settled, humble yourself, plead for mercy, and do whatever you can to get out of it so you are not continually under the bondage of being liable for someone else’s conduct. Teach your sons that.

One final lesson. "Son, love your neighbor." When we say you don’t co-sign for a stranger, we don’t mean you don’t give money to someone in need. No. Chapter 3 verse 27. "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it."

If you’ve got the money, give it. If you’ve got the goods, give them to the person in need. Generosity to the poor, meeting the needs of people around you when you have the resources is a part of honoring God. You’re to be generous in showing sacrificial love to your neighbor.

Don’t say, verse 28, "go, come back, and tomorrow I’ll give it." Don’t do that. If you’ve got it in your pocket, give it. If you have it, give it. Don’t tell them to come back. He has a need, you give the need. If you have it with you, don’t send him away and have him come back.

Another thing about your neighbor while you’re loving him: don’t devise harm against your neighbor when he lives in security beside you. He feels well being beside you and you got some plot going on where you’re going to get back at him in retaliation for something he did or where you’re going to confiscate the corner of his property or you’re going to do something to cut off his water or whatever it is.

Don’t do anything that is going to harm your neighbor. "Don’t contend with your neighbor," verse 30, "without any reason if he’s done you no harm." Don’t be vengeful is verse 31. Don’t have vengeance toward a neighbor.

Don’t envy people who resolve all issues with violence and say, "Boy, I wish I could—if I had my way, I’d cut him up." Don’t be vengeful. Don’t choose any of the ways of violent men. The curse of the Lord is on those kind of people.

So take care of your neighbor, love him, live with him in peace, forgive him, meet his needs. Those are the rules. And verse 35 says you’ll inherit honor. Honor. Well, such is the duty of a father. And I close with this, listen carefully.

You have this duty as a father, and I want to lay it as clear as I can at your feet. If you fail, father, to teach your son to fear God, the devil will teach him to hate God. If you fail to teach your son to guard his mind, the devil will gladly teach him to have an open mind.

If you fail to teach your son to obey his parents, the devil will teach him to rebel and break his parents' heart. If you fail to teach your son to select his companions, the devil will gladly choose them for him. If you fail to teach your son to control his body, the devil will teach him to give it over completely to lust.

If you fail to teach your son to enjoy the marriage partner that God has given him, the devil will teach him to destroy the marriage. If you fail to teach your son to watch his words, the devil will fill his mouth with filth. If you fail to teach your son to pursue his work, the devil will make his laziness a tool of hell.

If you fail to teach your son to manage his money, the devil will teach him to waste it on riotous living. And if you fail to teach your son to love his neighbor, the devil will gladly teach him to love only himself. We have a great responsibility to this generation and the next as fathers.

Phil Johnson: You’re listening to Grace to You Weekend, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John’s lesson today is called "Crucial Lessons for a Wise Father." At the end of the message, John said that fathers have a great responsibility both to this generation and to the next.

Of course, fulfilling that responsibility, training the next generation, can be particularly difficult when the world around you rejects the notion of objective divine truth. Along those lines, we want to ask John what he would say is the biggest challenge that fathers face in a world that rejects God. Here was John’s response.

John MacArthur: Yeah, I think maybe the biggest challenge or one of the biggest challenges for fathers today in the world is the fact that you have a culture that has lost all sense of authority. I mean it’s a postmodern world, right?

There’s no absolute truth. You have your truth, I have my truth, whatever I think is right is right for me, whatever you think is right is right for you. So in a world where there are no absolutes—and this is being taught by the way to children from the beginning of their education all the way through the university, and by the time you get to the university, it comes at them on like mega-steroids—you reject all authorities.

You become your own authority in a postmodern world. You’re the source of your own truth. So where then do you go for absolute standards that would allow us to have the greatest impact in producing a righteous generation of children? I don’t think fathers know what’s right and what’s essential.

Society mocks the crucial role that fathers have as leaders. It wants to give it to the mother. Scripture is clear: dads lead their families. They lead them somewhere, but to lead them right, they have to understand biblical truth.

Phil Johnson: That’s right, friend. You can’t lead your family in the right direction if you don’t know where to go yourself. And along those lines, let me mention John’s book called *Brave Dad*. It shows you what your spiritual leadership should look like as a father and it unpacks essential truths that you need to teach your children.

This would be a great book to give the dads in your life, maybe as a late Father’s Day gift. To order *Brave Dad*, contact us today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to our website gty.org. Shipping is free for *Brave Dad* and it’s reasonably priced.

*Brave Dad* is also available in Spanish. Again, to get your copy in English or Spanish, go to gty.org or call us at 800-55-GRACE. Also keep in mind there is a wide range of free Bible study resources available at gty.org.

Perhaps a friend has asked you a theological question that you don’t know how to answer, maybe about the creation versus evolution debate or the character of saving faith or some supposed contradiction in the Bible.

No matter what the question is, I encourage you to go to our website gty.org and there you will find sermons and blog articles and more that can help you find the answers you need. Our website again, gty.org.

Now for our entire staff, I’m Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378 and then be back next week when we begin John MacArthur’s study on a practical, hopeful, but often misunderstood section of Scripture, Zechariah chapters 9 through 14.

The study is titled "The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ." It’s another half hour of unleashing God’s truth one verse at a time on Grace to You Weekend.