Save America Ministries

Chuck Crismier: Before the terrible day of the Lord, the great and terrible day of the Lord, I will send forth the spirit of Elijah the prophet to call the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I strike the earth with a curse. Do you know that that is the next-to-last message that God brings to the earth before the second coming? The last one is in Revelation chapter 14. We're not going to talk about that one; it's brought by an angel.

But the next-to-last message is brought by the spirit of Elijah the prophet. In whose voice that is, I cannot tell you. But it says he's going to call the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Now why is that? Because God considers fatherlessness to be a curse. He considers fatherlessness to be one of the worst things that can ever happen to a family, to children, and yes indeed, to a nation.

Today on Viewpoint, we're going to take a look at this matter of fathering. We have Father's Day that's coming up very rapidly upon us, and it's important for us to consider that this is not just a day for being nice to dads or for providing a gift to dads. It is a day, even the more so, for fathers to take heed as to how important this is from God's viewpoint. And God's viewpoint is the only one that really matters, isn't it? Our kids will have a good viewpoint toward their dads if we have a good viewpoint toward our Father.

In order to become a true father, I have to first become a son. In order to become a true father, I have to become a son. And if I can become a good and honest and loyal son to God as my Father, then I am in a position as a father to be a good and loyal representative of God as Father to my children. When that happens, amazing things can take place in the lives of kids, in the lives of families, in the lives of a congregation, in the lives of an entire nation and the world.

God saw that, and that is why He said before the great and terrible day of the Lord—that is the second coming of Christ, when He pours out the justice and judgment upon the children of disobedience—He is going to call the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. So here is a question I have for you as we launch into the deep here today. Having said that, is there anything tweaking in your mind as a man that says, "I want to be that kind of a father"?

I want to be the kind of a father that is truly a godly representative of God as father. I do not want to be just a sperm donor; I want to be a true father. So what is a true father? Fathers are crucial to a child's development, offering a distinct perspective and presence that shapes emotional, cognitive, and social well-being. Active father involvement fosters higher self-esteem, stronger academic skills, and better behavioral outcomes. They provide a unique balance of security, boundary setting, and risk-taking that promotes independence.

Fatherhood is the state or role of being a father. But what does it mean to be a father? Is it just being a sperm donor, or is it something else that is more deeply implicit in the word father? Perhaps a lifelong, multifaceted journey of nurturing and guiding and supporting a kid's development. Beyond biological ties, it encompasses anyone who takes on the responsibility of parenting, including adoptive fathers, stepfathers, and male mentors. All of that here on the program today.

I welcome you aboard. I'm Chuck Crismier. It is conversation, as always, with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms. Before I move further, I want to make available my book, *Hearts of the Fathers: How to Leave a Legacy That Lasts*. A lot of fathers kind of take it for granted. It is kind of a ho-hum kind of a thing. "Well, yeah, I helped to give birth to this child or these children, and so I'm a father." Not from God's viewpoint; that is not enough.

From God's viewpoint, that is just a beginning. It is the rest of the story that matters most to God, and it is the rest of the story that matters most to our children and even to our children's mothers. *Hearts of the Fathers* is a very unique book. It is different than most other books concerning fatherhood. Why? Because it is about how to become and have the vision for fathering from God's viewpoint, not from the culture's viewpoint.

It is not a "take me out to the ball game, buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack" book. Any father can do that. It is about having a greater vision. What does it really mean from God's viewpoint? Is it possible for me to capture God's viewpoint as a father for my own family and my own children? This book helps to translate that into every man's heart for this critical moment in history. It is a $23 book, yours for $20 on our website, saveus.org. It is a hardbound book with a gorgeous cover.

Suppose that you are a mom and you want to bless your husband. This would be a great book for that. It is a book that would be encouraging. It is not a book that rips him over; it is a book that encourages and helps to catch a vision. It is one that he can get his mind and his heart around, that will stir deeply in his mind and his heart. It comes to the issue of fatherhood and legacy from a number of different directions, including financial.

But much more than that, it is a bigger vision for what it means to capture that understanding of a father's heart. So make sure you get a copy of it. Let's suppose that you have a son who is a father, or a new father, or a father-to-be. Again, what a great gift this would be to such a son or a grandson who is about to be a father. I urge you to grab a hold of the book that way because it will change a life, leaving a legacy that lasts, *Hearts of the Fathers*.

We will be right back after this to hear from Greg Laurie, pastor of the large congregation out there in Riverside, California. Will we become a fatherless society? Let's hear from him. Once upon a time, children could pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown, as was child abuse. In our once-great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues, and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation?

Hi, I'm Chuck Crismier, and I urge you to join me daily on Viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to Viewpoint on this radio station, or anytime at saveus.org. Welcome back to Viewpoint. I'm Chuck Crismier. Our viewpoint concerning fathers is determining destiny. There is no question about it. We will find that out today on Viewpoint.

But more than that, we want to take a look at how to inspire men. How can we all be better inspired to become the men, the fathers, yes, even the husbands that God would have us to be? Greg Laurie wrote a piece called "Will We Become a Fatherless Society?" and he talks about the difference between Mother's Day and Father's Day. He said here is how a young boy saw it: "Father's Day is just like Mother's Day, only you don't spend as much on the gift."

Well, maybe that is true, but what he is trying to say is more fathers attend church on Mother's Day than on Father's Day. Mother's Day has the highest church attendance other than Christmas and Easter, but Father's Day is one of the days with the lowest church attendance. Why would that be? Why would it be that Father's Day, the day when there should be leadership from fathers—spiritual leadership—it is the lowest church attendance day of the year?

Greg Laurie says, unfortunately, men are not stepping up to the plate like mothers do. Generally, mothers are there for their kids. Meanwhile, a lot of dads are missing in action. It is the wife who says, "Hey, will you read a Bible story to the kids and pray with them before they go to bed?" It is the wife who says, "We should pray before a meal." It is the wife who says, "We need to get ready for church." Wives are taking the initiative in their families.

Yet the Bible directs these words to fathers: "Fathers, do not provoke your kids to anger by the way you treat them, but rather bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord." So it is the father's primary responsibility in the home. It was virtually unheard of in the first-century culture for a father to abandon his responsibilities in the home, but now it seems like it is almost the norm.

Dads are so important because, to a large degree, children base their views of God on their fathers. So fathers are an earthly representative of God. It is the job of fathers to train their children and to bring them up in the way of the Lord. The reason why we bring them up is because their sinful nature brings them down. But right now in our culture, writes Greg Laurie, we are losing fathers at an unprecedented rate. One expert said that we are in danger of becoming a fatherless society.

Pretty much every social ill in America today, according to sociologists, can be traced directly back to the breakdown of the family and specifically to the absence of fathers. Fathers who have abandoned their responsibilities aren't doing what God has called them to do. In other words, it is not just the absence of a father in the home; it is the absence of the home where the father is. The father is present but not present. He is a pretense of a father. He is a pretender.

God is not looking to pretenders for fathers. He says it is time that the hearts of the fathers be returned to the children. Greg Laurie concludes by saying if husbands and fathers would do what they are called to do and take the initiative to lead their homes, it would change our country. It would make all the difference if they would be men of God. Dads, it is time to really man up and be a man of God. Your role is important, so be faithful in it.

I am going to ask you a rhetorical question: are you a man of God? Now, when I ask that question, I do not mean do you believe in God, because the devil believes and trembles, and we wouldn't call the devil a man of God, would we? So you say, "Well, I believe in Jesus." Well, so do the demons. So that does not make you a man of God either. It means to have the God-mind in you, to have the Christ-mind in you. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

It means to have God's viewpoint on life, the family, and children. It is God's viewpoint of what it truly means to bring about life and then to do something with that life that you were responsible for bringing forth so that it can bring glory to God and fulfill the destiny that God had for your purpose in the sexual meeting of husband and wife. It involves participation, being a playmate with the kids, and a principled guide with values and morals and discipline.

It means being a provider, both financially and with physical stability, and a preparer for the kids with emotional anchoring and role modeling for integrity and behavior. Those are some of the things that we need to look at as men. But beyond that, there is a depth of fatherhood that just seems to escape so many men. I have been ministering to and with men now since 1975. Specifically with men. That is a long time. So I understand the mind and heart of men.

I am one and have been able to encourage and equip men. When I was a coach for five years when I was going to law school, I worked with boys and young men to train them physically, intellectually, and morally with encouragement and strength to help them capture a view of themselves that they could be successful. Even there, I invested myself in young men. I took several young men on special trips to enable them to become modest risk-takers.

In other words, to be able to step out in adventure and do things that, generally speaking, a lot of dads would not be willing to do for their kids. I just did that because, for some reason, God instilled in me a heart for fathering. When my first daughter was born in 1972, about the seventh year of our marriage, I had this tremendous sense that even though I was in my 20s, God had a real purpose for me as a father.

I was in law school while working full-time as a school teacher, but those things did not replace my responsibility as a father. When I would get home from work or law school, I would take my daughter—she was under one year old—and I would take her out in my arms and walk with her across the street in a park-like area and just speak to her and pray over her. I would speak the word of God to her and begin to inculcate the mind and heart of Christ in her.

Today, that daughter is my right hand in this ministry. Other than my wife, my daughter is the one who manages the office. She understands the mind and heart of her father, believes in her father's calling, and embraces the entirety of that focus. And it all began before she was one year old. In other words, the vision for fatherhood begins way before the kids turn five or ten. It has to begin earlier. That nurturing, that sense of importance of a dad's presence.

In the scriptures, we say, "In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore." That is what a child will say if a father truly has a godly heart and vision. In his presence is fullness of joy. So what does a father desire? I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, a father's greatest desire is that he be respected by his wife and trusted by his kids. Would you agree with that?

Each of those desires is facing near catastrophic destruction from the assault of our postmodern culture. Maybe we have forgotten that the Bible says that the time has come that judgment will begin at the house of God. So how should we, as men and fathers, then live? What should be our priority? Well, we should love our wives as unto Christ. But we should also love our children and serve them because our spouses have worked with us as partners to create these children.

God has given us, as the men, the unbelievable overarching responsibility to govern our households and to be the models to those kids. Now, here is our problem: most men desire, but very few decide. Most men desire to leave a legacy and most men desire to be respected by their wife or by their kids, but they do not do much about it. They never activate what is necessary for those things to be fulfilled. So in other words, they do not decide.

Even when they do decide, they do not discipline themselves to follow through. They have desire, but they do not discipline themselves to do what they said they were determined to do. So the Bible talks about diligence. Diligence is necessary for us to follow through on that which we say we desire. Interestingly, our relationship with God as Father and as men is manifested through two metaphors in the Bible. First, we are described as the bride of Christ.

Second, we are described as the children of God as Father. So we, as men and as earthly husbands and fathers, fail to truly respect and honor Jesus as the bridegroom, and we necessarily lose the respect and honor we so crave from our wives because of it. Our response to this destructive dilemma will require us not only to desire but to decide to truly restore our faith in the Father and live accordingly. Whether or not we leave a legacy that is going to last will depend on at least seven essential truths.

There is so much more about Chuck Crismier and Save America Ministries on our website, saveus.org. For example, under the marriage section, God has marriage on His mind. Chuck has some great resources to strengthen your marriage: first off, a fact sheet on the state of the marital union, a fact sheet on the state of ministry, marriage, and morals at saveus.org. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage: what does the Bible really teach about this?

Find all of this at saveus.org. Also, a letter to pastors, the Hosea project, and many more resources to strengthen your marriage. It is all on Chuck's website, saveus.org. Again, you can listen to Chuck's Viewpoint broadcasts, live and archived, on the Save America Ministries website at saveus.org. Welcome back to Viewpoint. I'm Chuck Crismier. Would you believe that 1994 was declared by Congress the Year of the Father?

It was perceived that fathering was falling into such disrepute in our country, so dangerous, that something had to be done to try to get people's attention. So they called it the Year of the Father in the hope of trying to call attention back to true fathers who would live like fathers, who would give themselves to fathering, and especially Christian men giving themselves to fathering. It was almost like a post-mortem. After the death of fathering, all of a sudden we are going to resurrect it.

Did you know that since 1986, the United States is the world's leader in fatherless families? That was eight years before the Year of the Father was declared. In other words, this problem has been increasing. Well over 20 million children live without a father in the US. That is over three times the world average. Over 90% of all fatherless children are the product of divorce. Divorce is the number one cause of fatherlessness in America.

The second is 41% of the children born out of wedlock. So it should help us, if we really wanted to deal with this issue, we would have to start with the fundamentals. First, we would have to marry before we have children. Secondly, we would have to be faithful to the ones we marry so that the children are not products of divorce. When those two things happen, the nation would change dramatically. It is not a mystery. It is very simple.

The divorce culture now embraced and perpetuated by pastors and politicians and people alike has to be rejected as self-destructive to faith and family and fatherhood in the future. So faith has to replace the lordship of our feelings; that is going to require massive repentance and a change. Second, marriage between a man and a woman has to be restored as the preeminent building block of a stable nation. Spiritual conviction has to be restored beginning in God's own house.

Finally, sexual promiscuity has to become abhorrent in our culture, just as it is to Christ. That is going to require the restoration of the fear of the Lord in the church, from pulpit to pew, including your house and mine. And God as Father is waiting. What will we do? These things are pretty simple to articulate, but we have to have a will. If our will is lined up with God's will concerning fathering, then wonderful things can and will happen.

There are what I call triumphant truths. Triumphant truths that are so foundational that will help us as men to be the kind of fathers that we need to be. If these truths are taught and transmitted, precept upon precept, line upon line in our lives, and if we earthly fathers truly leave a legacy that lasts, we have to grasp the long-term simplicity of this foundational precept if we are going to experience a triumphant end to our fathering labors.

The first thing we have to do is turn. If we as fathers desire and expect our kids to turn toward us, we must first turn back toward the Father. It is so simple. God says, "Return unto me, and then I will return unto you." God is not chasing you down. If you are a professing Christian, He already did that, and you left. If you do not feel close to God, guess who left? He didn't leave you; you left Him. So He says, "Return unto me, and I'll return unto you."

Turning and returning are the fulcrum of restored and righteous fellowship with the Father, and when that happens, everything changes. Our thinking changes, our outlook changes, and we begin to have our Father's viewpoint concerning fathering and our marriages. God says, "I'm a father to Israel." But Israel said, "You chastised us." Yes, God says, "Yes, I did chastise you, because you are out of order. You are my children, so I am going to chastise and discipline you."

The Father is patiently waiting that this plaintive cry will come from fathers today who profess to be sons but aren't acting like it. The second thing we have to do is trust. trust precedes our ability to effectively teach and receive truth and communicate it to our kids. Trust is established first in the fear of the Lord that results in faith in the Lord, our Father, and obedience to the Father that increases through time. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.

Whosoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he. We have got returning and then trust. Remember the song, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey"? The same thing is true in our homes. Our children have to come to trust us, and that trust is revealed in their obedience to us. If the children do not obey their parents, they do not trust them. But in order for children to have the willingness to obey, they have to see that their father truly trusts the Lord.

If you call yourself a son of the Father God, then act like it. Obey His voice. Trust in Him with all your heart. When we do that as men, our children begin to see that over time and learn from it. We are actually investing in a legacy with our kids. Truth is the next word. The very concept of truth is rapidly becoming almost obsolete. Fewer than 50% of professing Christians now believe in absolute truth. Less than 10% of our younger generation admit to absolute truth.

We are in absolutely desperate situations. That should be frightening for fathers because the wrath of God the Father will rest on our falsely led sons and daughters who are not convinced through personal conviction of heart that only he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. How could we reach such a horrific state of affairs? It is because we abandoned the fear of the Lord in the country, even in God's house.

Professing Christian fathers have fostered an Esau generation willing to sacrifice the eternal truths of God's word in pursuit of personal peace and prosperity and cozy feelings rather than genuine faith. If trust is our hope for our sons and daughters, truth has to become a passionate pursuit by us as fathers who display our love of the truth in our households. Have you ever considered what the early church was like?

Many people are developing a heart longing for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore first-century Christianity for the 21st century? Go to saveus.org and click Cell Church. We can revive first-century Christianity.

Welcome back to Viewpoint. If we want to leave a godly legacy with our children, it begins in our own lives, dads. We can't lose sight of that. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You have got to start somewhere. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, so start today. Don't wait or delay. The miracle that is going to happen is when you catch the vision and have a tremendous desire to follow the Lord with a whole heart as a father.

Being a father does not mean you just provide a roof over the kids' heads and food on the table. That is necessary, but it is so foundational that even a non-believer will do that. What we are talking about here is what it means to be a godly father. It is way beyond just normal cultural fatherhood. Do you have a desire to leave a genuine legacy that lasts? It has got to be rooted in truth. God as a father has deputized you and me for such a time as this.

We can't be proficient procrastinators, friends. Today is the day. Why is it that when this book came out, two-thirds of all these books were purchased by women? Because the women are desperately longing for their husbands to become godly fathers and leaders in the home. That is what they yearn for more than anything else, and we are failing. One of the most beautiful things is when you catch the vision of genuine fathering from God's viewpoint. It just opens up a whole new understanding.

We as men have been deputized by God as fathers and grandfathers to be the spiritual leaders in our home. We are not talking about just taking kids to church. Moses told the children of Israel early on, "You shall teach them diligently unto your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." I've done that with my grandchildren, working out in the yard and inculcating in them spiritual truths.

Train up a child in the way he should go. Genuine and consistent application of spiritual truth in our houses is almost invariably the missing link. The truth is rejected as irrelevant, and transformation seldom takes place. We are paralyzed by fear of rejection. Those charged with fatherly teaching and training are reluctant to make the applications of the Father's truths that are most likely to produce change. In reality, we are terrified by fear.

The next point is testing. Trust is going to have to be tested. In fact, trust must be tested periodically to be validated. You know that Jesus, as the Son, had to be tested. He was led up after His baptism to the wilderness to be tested. Even so, we have to be tested and tried. The measure of the legacy that you and I leave will be defined by our pattern of passing the test of trustworthiness with our sons and daughters. If God is calling us to obey, we obey.

Then comes the final word: tribulation. Severe testing builds substantial trust, and trust is built and strengthened through exercise. That is called faith. And without such increasing faith built on tested trust, it is impossible to please the Father. Tribulation of fathers becomes essential for their sons to pass the trust test. Our attitudes, dads, toward tribulation will often determine the actions of our kids, both toward us and toward God.

Legacy brings pending severe testing that reveals either genuine or counterfeit trust. Can you see how important this is to understand? And friends, this is just a very small portion of what you will find in the book *Hearts of the Fathers: Leaving a Legacy That Lasts*. I hope you will get the book. The statistics prove that professing Christian men do not have a handle on fatherhood. They think that taking their kids to church means they're godly fathers. No, it doesn't mean that.

The Bible says teach them. Talk of the word in your home. And then finally, triumph. Testing and tribulation or pressure always precede triumph. Men, if we are going to be victorious in Jesus, we have to be tested as fathers. The Father God is right now seeking true fathers who will prepare their sons and daughters for coming times of greater testing and trust in their faith. It is a given. The Father's heart is in hot pursuit of the hearts of fathers.

Do you understand that we are on the near edge of the second coming? Most people do. The season is just upon us. This is our Elijah moment. History hinges on our decisions as dads. Procrastination isn't possible. Every man that has this hope in him will purify himself even as Christ is pure. That means we're going to walk away from the foolish cultural viewpoints of fatherhood and we're going to embrace God's viewpoint so that we can be triumphant in the end.

God the Father will say to you and to me, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant father." I want to hear that from my Father, don't you? Get a copy of the book *Hearts of the Fathers*. It is a $23 book, yours for $20 on the website, saveus.org. Call us at 1-800-SAVE-USA. What an investment. A kingdom investment. An investment in hope and ultimate legacy. All you have got to do is come up with 20 bucks, and it will change your life.

In addition to that, go to the website saveus.org and you will find there under fact sheets a fact sheet called "Father Facts: Fatherhood in Crisis." It lays out these issues in a way that you can use in your congregation. Fathers, grandfathers, you can use this in discussion even with the men's group that you are involved with. It is breaking the heart of God the Father. I know how important this is. Fatherhood is a powerful brain booster for involved parents.

Don't miss the opportunity. You have been listening to this program for years. Maybe it is time to step up to the plate and become a partner to help get the message out more broadly. Become co-participants in preparing the way of the Lord for history's final hour. That is what we are doing. This is our moment of truth. We are in the valley of decision. God bless, be a blessing, and let me know what God has done in and through your life.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church, declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home.