The Blessed Holy Spirit (Being A Man!)

Watch Father’s Day from The Skit Guys!

If Dee didn’t officially do it, welcome and recognize all of the Fathers!

I just wanted to take a moment and thank Pastor Linus Vaughn for speaking last Sunday in my stead. He brought an awesome message to the body, which was a continuation of who and what we have been talking about over the last seven weeks now, and that is none other than the Holy Spirit of God and His role in the life of a believer.

I know that Pastor Linus mentioned to all of you that repetition in teaching is a good thing, and that is so true! There is not a person sitting in this room, myself included, or watching via the live stream, who doesn’t benefit from hearing teachings from the Word again and again and again..........AMEN?!

And so, with Pastor Linus continuing in teaching about Holy Spirit, those of you who were here, or were watching, you were blessed and well fed from the Word, AMEN?!

I was very blessed this past week, to be able to spend some time with my family at the beach. My wife and I and both of our daughters and son in law and our beautiful little grand daughter, Elliana, spent the week hanging out and talking and playing games and just enjoying one another’s company.

And what a fitting way to end that week, than to come back here and be together with our family at CWC and celebrate Father’s Day together!

You know, I was rather surprised when I was reading this weekend and found out that of all of the major US holidays, Father’s Day carries the lowest church attendance number.

Like, to the tune of only around 4% of the regular church goers attend on this Sunday, on the average!

Mother’s Day is actually one of the higher averages, so why is Father’s Day so low?

We know that because it’s in the month of June, there are many people that are out and on vacation as a family and that part makes sense.

But, that still doesn’t account for all of those who are still in town on that weekend, does it?

So, where are all of those people at?

Do they just not care about their fathers, like they do their mothers?

OR..........is there another probable reason for such a drop?

In actuality, many, many fathers, would rather spend this day at the lake or golfing or fishing, or picnicking with their family, rather than going to church first as a family, like so many of the mothers want to do, and then spend time afterwards together!

And please don’t misunderstand me, I love spending time with my family and I’m not taking a jab at anyone who is doing this today. I know that sometimes time is a commodity that many of us do not have much of, especially with our hectic work schedules and the such and we try to capitalize on the time whenever possible to spend time with our families.

Still, there are those who, as soon as the subject is brought up from the wife about what, “Honey what do you want to do on Father’s Day this year”, the first thing they think of, is a free day to sleep in and then go play!

And this is what they are teaching to their children as to the relevance that they place upon gathering together as brothers and sisters in the Lord, to worship God and give thanks to Him for the blessing of Father’s Day and every other Sunday thereafter!

And this does not accord with the command of Hebrews 10:24-25, which says,

Hebrews 10:24–25 NLT

24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

And this action and attitude of so many men, actually counters what many of the mothers try to instill into their children about the Lord’s day and the special significance of gathering together and being a family together as the Body of Christ!

The children eventually begin to connect the dots as to how the fathers and the mothers differ in their views about gathering together for corporate worship and they begin to develop their patterns and beliefs based upon what they witness in the home!

You know, as I have stressed before, those little eyes and little ears that run around in our homes are always monitoring what we say and what we do.

And they begin very early in life, to understand and make sense of things by what they witness from us!

They are developing patterns for their future lives, based on what mommy and daddy are doing in the home!

When I was a small boy, I was very blessed to have a father who was engaged in my upbringing and who wanted to spend time with me and with my sister, as I have shared with you all before.

We would spend weekends over in Morgan County TN at my great grandparents house and my father would get me up early in the mornings, just before sunrise during hunting season and take me out and teach me how to load the little .22 caliber rifle that he let me use and then we would walk back through the woods together.

We would be walking along and my father would stop and motion for me to be quiet and he would point to his ear as a sign for me to listen, and then he would point off into the distance for me to focus on what I was hearing. And then he would whisper to me and say, “Do you hear that sound? That is a squirrel barking. It’s seen us and its notifying the other around us that we are here!”

My father taught me a lot of things about life when I was growing up, as I have shared before in other messages with you. He taught me how to hunt, how to fish, how to play baseball, how to use certain tools around the house and other things like that.

My dad definitely believed in Proverbs 13:24, which states, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

I was raised to respect others, especially my elders.

My father and my mother spent time with my sister and myself early in life reading the Word of God to us and bringing us up in church and why it was important to do so.

Was my dad perfect? NO! But looking back over the years, he was perfect for me! God had a plan and it involved using a man named Don Palmer to raise me. And I am so glad that my upbringing involved a DAD and not just a FATHER!

You see pretty much any man or adolescent can be a FATHER, that is simply a biology lesson and it requires no thought or intellect to take place, but it takes love, and dedication and character and Godly influence to be a real DAD!

And that is what is needed in this nation today........men stepping up to become dads for their children.

I’m not going to go through all of the stats with you, you can look them up for yourself, but here are a few.

READ STATS FOR FATHERLESS HOMES!

We so desperately need to get back to what God instructed to the nation of Israel thousands of years ago when He said to His people in Deuteronomy 6:4-9,

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

In other words, children desperately need to be raised, hearing and witnessing the Bible being lived out in their home!

This takes dedication and purpose and love to do this in your house with your children and with your grandchildren.

It’s for this reason, whenever we do a baby dedication here at Cumberland Worship Center, we always read this scripture passage as a reminder for the parents and the grandparents.

Because getting the Word of God engrained into a child’s mind is critical for their future!

This is the job of every mother and most definitely of every FATHER!

Training up a child to love the Word of God and to know what that Word says and means is absolutely vital to a child’s spiritual future.

And I want to be clear in saying this, I am not downplaying or diminishing the role of the mother in a home.

Her part is equally important in the life of a child, to that of the father.

And still, there is no denying the absolute critical necessity of a man being active in the upbringing of a child.

Just being in the home doesn’t count! it’s not a role call that we are looking for, but rather, it’s a role being fulfilled that truly matters!

There is undeniably solid proof and data to show the significance that the father makes when he is active in raising the children and when he is active in training them up in the Word of God.

And yes, most definitely, as we started off talking about a few minutes ago, when the father is active in taking his children to church and teaching them to worship God together, as a corporate body!

Studies done by Promise Keepers, along with the corroboration of other international groups, have proven the following:

* If a father does not go to church, even if his wife does, only one child in fifty will become a regular worshipper! (The best number from other studies that can be found, shows this number to be no more than 18%!)

* Statistics from these studies show us that if a father regularly attends church, even if the mother isn’t going, 66% of the children will attend church later in life!

* When both husband and wife regularly attend church, 75% of the children will become regular attenders.

In fact, listen to these facts from the Southern Baptist Association:

• If a child is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 3.7 percent probability that the rest of the family will become Christians. • If mom is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 17 percent probability that the rest of the family will follow. • If dad is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 93 percent probability that everyone else in the family will follow his lead!

I read an article yesterday that was written from an atheists point of view, and it was congratulating the Christians in this country for a job well done, because of the latest Gallup Poll. According to the facts from the latest Gallup Poll taken this year, only 47% of Americans say that they belong to a house of worship! Marking the first time ever in our nation’s history, that that number has dipped below 50%!

We are at a critical turning point in this nation right now!!!

It is time for the men of the church in this nation to rise up and become what God called them to be!

Too many men today seem to think that by virtue of their sexual orientation and because they have married and produced offspring, that they are husbands and fathers and that they are meeting, or have met, their spiritual obligations!

Let me say this, “You can produce a family and that DOES NOT make you a father!

You can be married and that DOES NOT make you a mate.

And you can be a male, but that DOES NOT make you a MAN!

I was reading a week ago in the Old Testament, and I came across a passage that just stood out to me and screamed for my attention. It was at that point that I knew, at least in part, as to what I was to speak about this morning.

The passage was found in I Kings 2:1-3, and this is what it says,

1 Kings 2:1–3 NASB95

1 As David’s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, 2 “I am going the way of all the earth. Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man. 3 “Keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn,

Pay close attention to what David said to his son in verse 2 of this passage. David said, “Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man.”

Or as other versions of the Bible read, “Be strong and prove yourself a man!”

Now this was coming from the great King David. The man who was known for slaying his ten thousands in battle!

The man who single handedly slew the great giant Goliath with just a sling and a stone.

The man who, as a boy, took down a bear and lion while shepherding his flock, with his bare hands!

This is the man who is commissioning his son Solomon (who is about to take over the kingdom from his father and who is going to continue in the legacy of his father) and this, of all things that he could have said, is what the great warrior, King David, says to his son about what being a REAL MAN looks like.

David said, to be a MAN, you must, “Keep the charge of the Lord your God, [that is, fulfill your obligation to] walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in everything that you do and wherever you turn.”

Did everyone catch that? Being a true, godly man has nothing to do with how much testosterone you are producing..........it has nothing to do with how tough you are in a fight or in battle, or how many men you have whipped...........it has nothing to do with how much money you make, or what status or job title you hold.........it has nothing to do with who your father was, or is and your family heritage!

In fact, being a real man of God, has nothing to do with anything of this world!

BUT IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND YOUR FOLLOWING HIS WORD AND HIS WILL FOR YOUR LIFE!

In the days of the Old Testament and following the Exodus period and when Israel was taking the land of Canaan as their inheritance by God, and also during the time of King David and the kings who would came after him, the men of Israel were always having to fight to take and to protect what was to be theirs and what they had, as God directed them to do.

God would tell the people to be strong and courageous and that He would be with them and protect them and that it was always God who was fighting for them and on their behalf.

He said in passages like Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”

And then listen to what the Lord instructed Joshua to do, when he was taking over leading the people of Israel following Moses in Joshua 1:6-9, God said to him,

Joshua 1:6–9 ESV

6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Is this not the same thing that David was saying to Solomon, as to what a real MAN was to do and what a real MAN of God would look like?

A real man of God adheres to the Word of God and diligently follows its precepts!

And in doing so, the real MAN of GOD brings blessings upon his home and his family!

When a real MAN is reading the Word and teaching the Word and following the Word of God in his home, then he is spiritually releasing blessings over his home and over his wife and over his children and grandchildren!

God told Joshua to meditate on His Word, day and night so that he would be sure to obey everything written in it. Then and only then would he prosper and succeed in ALL (everyone say, “ALL”), all that he did!

The reverent fear of the Lord and the love for His Word is the key to unlocking blessings over you and your family and the future of your children!

Proverbs 22:4 says, “The reward of humility and the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”

And of course we know from the Word that Jesus and the knowledge of Him is where all of the riches and honor and life are found.

Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 3:8, “To me, (Paul), the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.”

And in Colossians 2 Paul says, “in Christ, in Him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

And that is what the true MAN OF GOD brings into his home. All of the riches and honor and glory and power, that comes through Jesus the Christ and a real relationship with Him!

Paul says to the body of Christ in I Corinthians 16:13, “

1 Corinthians 16:13 ESV

13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Stand firm in the faith men! Do not waiver and do not move to the right or to the left, in your spiritual walk with the Lord!

The enemy wants to remove real Godly men from the homes and from the marriages in this country!

And he has been doing that, methodically, for years.

As we have already seen from the current stats in this country, if you can alter, or change the role of being a godly man and godly husband and father, then you can control a nation!

Does anyone know who Gloria Marie Steinem is? In the early 60’s, she was a playboy bunny, who would later turn into an American feminist journalist and social political activist. She made the following statement one time about the institution of marriage, she said, “Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and is a legalized, sanctioned control of women. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. It is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands. We must work to destroy marriage. The nuclear family must be replaced with a new form of family where individuals live together to meet the needs of all people. There must come a new way of looking at children. Children must be seen the entire responsibility of the entire society rather than their parents.”

In other words, Ms Steinem is saying that we need to do away with the institution of marriage for the good of society! There has been and still is in America, an attack on the institution of the American family and upon the parents of the family.

Look at all of the sitcoms and movies over the last few decades. They portray the parents, and especially the fathers, as babbling, stumbling, bumbling, buffoons! And the children are portrayed as the intelligent saviors of the homes and for the parents! The role of a godly husband and a godly father has been sought after by our society as something to be hunted down and eradicated!

Our nation and even its leaders, have worked diligently to remove masculinity from our nation and to replace it with a new form of masculinity and a new and more “modern” man! The feminist movement has demanded that the God given role of the husband and father be removed as the spiritual leader of the house and replaced with that of the woman, or at least changed to a more neutral/bi-partisan version of the roles between husband and wife.

But the Word of God stands true and the role and the responsibility of the husband as leader of the house cannot me mocked or changed without horrible consequences to this nation. As evidenced by the statistics that we saw earlier. Ephesians 5:21-6:9 and the God ordained role of spiritual submission to the positions that have been placed over you and I, from the wives submitting to the husband (while the husband is charged to give everything of himself to preserve and protect and love her), and to that of the children submitting to the parents and the servants submitting to their masters; these roles cannot be undone without horrible consequences to the homes and institutions of this nation and to the government itself!

It is a proven fact that a real man, a godly man, succeeds and passes blessings on to his children and their children and society and the god of this world, does not want you and I to know and understand and realize this.

Do you know, or remember the late billionaire, J. Paul Getty? The man, who died in the 70’s, was a billionaire in that day and age! Even in today’s standard, being a billionaire means a lot of money, right?

Well, in his auto0biography, J. Paul Getty made the following quote, he said, “I’ve never been given to envy, save or except for the envy I feel towards those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily. It’s an art I have never been able to master. My record, five marriages, five divorces; in short, five failures.”

And he goes on to talk about his relationship with his five sons as “painful”.

The legacy that this man left to his family was horrible. His youngest son Timothy had died of a brain tumor at the age of 12 in 1958 while his eldest son George Franklin was found dead after consuming drugs and alcohol in 1973.  Another of Paul's sons, Sir John Paul Getty, had struggled with depression and addiction until his 2003 death.  A shocking scandal hit the family, when J Paul's 16-year-old grandson John Paul Getty lll was kidnapped by mobsters and held captive for months in 1973.

In the latest tragedy to come upon the family was the death of one of the oil tycoon's grandsons and heir, John Gilbert Getty who was found dead in a hotel room at the age of 52. In 2014 John Gilbert’s brother Andrew was found dead at his home in Los Angeles after suffering intestinal bleeding. The 54-year-old had a toxic level of methamphetamine in his system.

Here is a man, who by the world’s standard, was a huge success, but from his own mouth, admitted that he was a failure. And as a man of the world, his legacy for his family was horrendous!

Now, to close and to make the point of being a godly man, a real man, let me show you an example of what a godly man leaves behind, vs a wordly man.

Do you remember the late preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who wrote the sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, during the first great awakening, in New England.

In 1900 American pastor and educator Albert Edward Winship wrote a book entitled “Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity.” In it he traced the posterity of the two men. One was Jonathan Edwards and the other was a man by the name of Max Jukes, Jukes was an atheist who married an ungodly woman.

Now listen to this contrast between Jukes and Edwards, who lived in the same time line:

Of Max Jukes’ 540 studied descendants, 310 died as paupers, 150 were convicted criminals, there were 7 murderers, over 100 drunkards, and 190 female prostitutes.

From Jonathan Edwards’ 1,394 studied descendants came an American vice-president, 3 senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 30 judges, 13 college presidents, 65 college professors, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 military officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 60 prominent authors, and 80 other public officials.

Being a real MAN, a godly MAN, has great affect on others and on this nation!

We need men to step up and show themselves to be men; real men, men who have been filled with the Holy Spirit and who love God and His Word and who devote themselves to being godly husbands and fathers!!

CLOSE IN PRAYING OVER THE MEN OF OUR CHURCH AND OF OUR NATION!