Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: Fathers, you have a great responsibility to your wife, to your children, and to your grandchildren. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6, it tells you that when you get up in the morning, when you walk by the way, sitting down, standing up, going out, coming in, at night, make mention of God to your children.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Today as Raul continues our series for Christian fathers, he’ll urge us to lean in to our God-given role as the spiritual leader of our families. No matter how busy or challenging your life might be, the Lord has called you to set an authentic, consistent example of faith.

Your children will follow your lead as you pray with them and teach them God’s Word. Today’s message is taken from Joshua chapter 24, beginning in verse 14. Now, here’s Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: What does the Bible say about fathers? Well, believe it or not, the father's role in the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament is this: that he is to be the spiritual leader of his home. What does he have to do? Well, number one, Dad, men in that home, has to not only become born again of the Holy Spirit in order to become the leader of his home because he can be the leader financially of that home.

But if he’s not the spiritual leader of that home, then that home eventually will be self-destroyed. We need God, and we need the Word of God in the home. One of the things that Moses writes when he’s coming out of Egypt and they’re on their way to the promised land, God raised up Joshua and Moses began to teach and to train Joshua concerning the things that God intended the people of God to be and to do.

So by the time Moses got old, 120 years old, and he was going to die, the baton was passed on to Joshua because Moses was the first generation and then Joshua became the second generation. And as Joshua took that baton and he began to minister and began to go into the promised land and take victory after victory after victory in the promised land, by the time he became of age and he became old and he knew that his days were actually numbered.

He gathered together all of the people from that generation that had seen the miracles of God and the power of God, and they had seen how God had provided in the wilderness manna, and how they had the same sandals 40 years and the same clothes for 40 years wandering through the wilderness. And in the evenings, the grandfather and the father would sit with their children and grandchildren, and they would tell them the stories about the Great Exodus, speaking of God’s past, looking to the present, and of course, looking to the future.

And so as Moses told the story over and over and over, somehow, as a leader, you kind of sense what’s going on not only with the people of God, but as you look out unto the world and you read not only the newspapers and you read clippings from other kind of magazines and you kind of are updated with what’s going on in the world today, you get the sense that not only Jesus is coming again, but there are problems in the world today.

And that if we, the church of Jesus Christ, do not continue to pass on what God has given to us from generation to generation to generation, it is very possible that the next generation from this generation will not know the Lord. One of the things that we must not forget is that in the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses was spending his last 30 days in writing that book, and he was preparing as he was summing up the whole law of God.

In the sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, which is the law of God, he is called the second law in the Hebrew. He gave that sixth chapter not only to demonstrate the Shema, the Lord your God is one God, but then he began to share how the parents, starting with the father to the mother, had the responsibility to the children and how a parent had the responsibility of bringing up his child in the ways of the Lord.

And sometimes that is hard because parents have other agendas. And unless a parent disciplines his life, unless a parent is fully committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and desires to see his children not only get educated and go to a good college and get a good job and get a good wife and a good husband, whatever it may be and have children, the most important thing is that the first impression is in the home where the child lives.

He’s there 24/7. He sees when you’re strong, he sees when you’re weak, he sees when you blow it. And those are impressions in the mind of a child. When I look back at my childhood, it wasn’t too good. But I can remember one thing: an impression was made by my grandmother, my dad’s mother. My father lost his dad at eight years old. The Germans took my grandfather, the Nazis took him and actually executed him in Germany.

And my grandmother was left alone. My grandmother was an opera singer in Mexico City, and she was left with a child, my dad. And I can remember my grandmother when I was growing up, spending most of my time with my grandmother rather than my mother or my father because my father was too busy drinking and partying. When I would go with my grandmother when I was sleeping, I could always hear her praying for our family, praying for me.

And it’s pretty amazing when I begin to think back on those things, how my grandmother prayed. I believe that God saw her heart and the sincerity of her prayers, and God answered her prayers. For God loves to answer prayer. And yet my home life affected me tremendously. My father’s drinking and violence affected my life as I grew up. Even though I didn’t pursue after the way of alcohol, I pursued in the way of violence, no drugs.

But it’s incredible when you come to Jesus Christ what Christ can do for your life as a father and as a mother. And there may be many of you that are here where your children already are gone and you say, man, I wish I would have known this a long time ago. It’s too late for me. It’s never too late for anybody because you’re going to have grandchildren. And your children can see through the love of Christ a change in your life. It’s never too late.

Joshua had a heart for God. And when Joshua began to see the people of God and that as they were having children, he began to see a problem in the camp. And so what he did is he gathered the people together unto himself, every male and female, every child, and he stood up to them and he began to share his third sermon. His first sermon is in chapter 22, his second one in chapter 23, and the third sermon is here in chapter 24 in verses 14 through the end of the chapter.

Let me read to you what he says to them, beginning with verse 14 of Joshua. He says, "Now therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and Egypt and serve the Lord." And then he gives them the choice. "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, then choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Notice that. Life is made up of choices. Whether good or evil, whatever choices we make today, we're going to reap the consequences tomorrow and in the future. That’s why it’s so important to understand that as we make choices, we better make sure we make the right choices and the biblical choices according to the Word of God. It doesn’t matter what you think, but what does God say in the Word of God. That’s what counts.

Now, the people responded very actively and they said, "Hey, we want to serve the Lord." Look at verse 16. So the people answered and said, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods." And yet at that particular moment, there were people in that congregation that were already moving away from God, worshipping other gods. God doesn’t speak in vain. God precedes the problem before the problem arises and He gives us warnings before it happens.

And I think it’s important that we understand that Joshua here is giving a third sermon, but it’s a warning sermon. It’s a sermon of exhortation to the next coming generations and he’s exhorting the first generation because they have the responsibility of passing it on to the second and third generation. Fathers, you have a great responsibility to your wife, to your children, and to your grandchildren.

First of all, you as a father have a responsibility to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might completely. And then the Bible says you have a responsibility for husbands to love their wives and the wives are to submit to their husbands in the Lord.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Our goal is to equip you with scripture that will inspire and direct you in your daily walk with God. Connect with us anytime at somebodylovesyou.com for Bible-based resources, including Raul’s six-lesson series for fathers. Now, back to more with Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: I believe that no wife will ever submit if you are not the leader spiritually of your home. Why? Because you’re making decisions upon your own knowledge and not upon God’s knowledge. Your wife and your children have to see you praying with them. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6, he tells you that when you get up in the morning, when you walk by the way, sitting down, standing up, going out, coming in, at night, make mention of God to your children.

Every opportunity, give them the Word of God. Tell them about the greatness of God, how God helped you today as you were on your way to work and something happened and you prayed and God rescued you. They need to know that God is real. They need to hear it from you. Every one of us are accountable. To much is given, much more is required. So God desires that you would sit with your wife and read the scriptures to your wife.

And when you sit at meals, teaching your children how to pray. If you don't teach them, then who’s going to teach them? They're going to learn about other gods, and they're going to worship other gods. They got to see God work in your life and that God is real and that God does miracles and wonders in my life so they can expect the same in their lives. And one of the things that God desires that every one of us would learn as we not only read the scriptures and see what God says.

Is that God desires that you and I, first of all, that we would fear the Lord our God and obey Him in everything that we do and love Him. Fear, love, and obey are the three keywords. You see, you’re the example. You set the pattern in the home. God desires to do a tremendous work in the life of parents, mothers and fathers. But this morning we're actually speaking to actual fathers.

Maybe today you find yourself in a situation as a father that you really want to be a godly father and you want to really love your children and love your wife, but you find yourself entrapped by some sin in your life. And it’s holding you down. It could be a little flame at work with this gal that is actually flirting with you. And you might be in that position where the flirting is becoming now a lustful thing and you’re just about to give in to that temptation and you’re going to fall with this woman, and then you’re going to hurt your wife and your children.

You reap what you sow. When you sin, you hurt your wife and you hurt your children and you hurt everybody else, and most important, you hurt God. Maybe you're a father that has problems with drugs and your kids see you always on drugs. That’s not a good example. They need to see a man that is spirit-filled, a man that not only cries a lot of times, but a one that humbles himself in the presence of God. That’s what God desires from each one of us here this morning.

See, as Joshua gave the sermon, the people agree with it. But the people were wrong. Look at the book of Judges with me, chapter 2, beginning with verse 7. He says, "So then the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel." So they saw everything that God did, and then that generation died.

And now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord died when he was 110 years old. And then they buried him within the inheritance at Timnath-heres in the mountains of Ephraim in the north side of Gaash. He says, "And when all that generation had been gathered together to their fathers." Let me stop here for a second. Let me say that verse 10, the first part of it, let’s say that’s us right here, right now.

Your children are coming along now, they're going to become the second generation. When they get married, your grandchildren will become the third generation. You have been able to experience heartache, times when you had no food, no money, and how God came through and blessed you. And when you were sick, you prayed and God healed you and God touched you. But at the same time somehow you’ve gotten away from those things, so now your children in the second generation are not experiencing what you experienced.

By the time your children grow up and by the time they have their grandchildren, guess what’s going to happen? There arose the next generation that did not know the Lord Jehovah God, but worshipped Baal. And we replace the true God for another god that is of wood and gold and silver that has ears and eyes and hands and feet that don't move, no life in that idol. And then after we get tired of those idols, we begin to worship ourselves.

And yet God waits so patiently for us to come back to Him and say, "Lord, I want to repent. I want to be the spiritual leader of my home. I want to love my wife, I want to love my children, I want them to respect me. I want to have a heritage in the future to come where my children’s children will serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and some of them will be missionaries. Some of them will be businessmen or lawyers or judges, whatever it may be, but their first priority is God."

They're going to serve God and they're going to know God, and they're going to pass on the Word of God to their children. That’s what we desire today. And the only way that it can happen is for fathers to repent. You know what you have done, you know what you are doing, and it’s never too late to become a great father and a great grandfather to your children and to your grandchildren. God desires to touch you and to anoint your life.

And to use your life because our days are limited, our days are numbered, and we're all of us one day or other we're going to die. And whatever you leave behind, at a funeral what are people going to remember you for? What are people going to be sharing about you? I would think that when I die, the thing they would talk about is that I love God with all my heart and that we taught them the Word of God. Nothing else.

Nothing else matters. What matters is giving our children and our grandchildren the Word of God and God Himself, that He would become real. The moment Joshua died and that generation died, their children walked away from God. The parents neglected to teach their children about God and what God did. They missed the commandment of Moses. Teach your children. Let them know how God moved from generation to generation to generation to generation.

Tell them what Passover is all about. The lamb that was killed, the blood that was drained, the way was actually cut and then sacrificed. It is a picture, it is a type of the Lamb of God that is coming in the future. And of course, we know now today that the Lamb of God is who? Jesus Christ. He’s our God. The one that shed His blood for every one of our sins because He loved us so much. God desires to work in the heart of every person here today.

But if you're teaching your children and your grandchildren that church is not important, that it’s not important to fellowship with other believers, it’s not important to come every week to hear the Word of God, not just on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights. Why? Because as long as we're in the house of the Lord, guess what? We're protected and we're being exhorted and God is feeding our souls and we're growing and God will place a call in our lives and God will use us.

We don't want to become religious. We want to become people that have a personal relationship with their God. That’s what we desire. I don't go to church to hear sermons, I go to church to have fellowship with God and with my brothers and sisters and to be fed by the Word of God. That’s why we're here. It’s not a social club. It’s a place where we allow God to convict us and to speak to us so that we can change.

We can change our lives and our lives can become better and we can instruct our children and grandchildren so that when we become old and feeble, they'll be able to respect us and to take care of us and to watch over us, but most important, as we watch them serve the Lord. That’s the greatest thing.

Guest (Male): We hope it’s helpful to learn that when you're feeling overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions, the best thing you can do for your family is to spend more personal time with the Lord Jesus. You’re listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Today’s lesson was titled "A Father’s Message." For a donation of five dollars or more, we'll be happy to send an unedited copy to you. Just call us at 800-634-9165.

Now, we’d also like to tell you about Raul’s six-part series for fathers, featuring today’s message as well as five others. This resource is available on both CD and USB. Every one of these lessons explores more of what it looks like to cultivate God-honoring priorities and nurture authentic faith in your home. You’ll also discover how to help your kids establish habits of obedience and surrender in their own journey with the Lord.

To order Raul’s six-lesson "Father’s Study," visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165. We'll send you the CD set for $19 or the flash drive for $10. That’s 800-634-9165. Or write to Somebody Loves You Radio, PO Box 4440, Diamond Bar, California, 91765. We are so grateful for your partnership. Every gift you give helps strengthen believers and build strong churches all over the world.

Next time on Somebody Loves You Radio, we'll continue our focus on Christian fatherhood with a challenge to fully surrender your life to the Lord, trusting Him with your family and your future in a daily act of faith. Now, here’s Raul once again.

Raul Ries: Start praying right now if you're not married for your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. The prayers of God are not wasted. Pray that God will give you, if you're not married, your wife or your husband that is going to be godly. One that loves God more than he loves you. His priority is God. And if you're married now and you’re having problems in your marriage, pray to God. God will hear your prayer.

If you're here this morning as a single parent, don't feel bad. The Lord is your husband right now. Don't feel sorry for yourself. The Lord is with you. He’ll lead you, He’ll guide you, He’ll protect you, He’ll provide for you. And all He wants you to do as a husband, as a wife, is to put your trust in the Lord completely. For me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

Guest (Male): This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.