The Power of a Parent’s Influence
By Pastor Matt Black
20 June 2007
Midweek Bible Study
1 Peter 5:8; Psalm 78:1-8
Introduction: Open your Bible to Psalm 78:1-8 and then we’ll read one verse from 1 Peter 5:8. The title of tonight’s message is “Don’t Trust Your Children with Sin”. To begin, let’s read verses 1 through 8, “Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children. 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”
1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
It is absolutely imperative that tonight if you are a Mom or a Dad that you take your responsibility seriously. You are called to stand in the gap for your kids. And this message is not just for parents, it is for every church member to realize the great impact we have on molding children.
I. Beware of the powerful influence of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
You Mom, need to be a proactive mother. Fathers need to be proactive. Why? Because a world of sin is crouching at the door. Your children will not turn out godly on their own. If you don’t take an active part in their life to raise them for the Lord, then the world, the flesh and the devil will be glad to direct your children to hell.
Parents are to hate evil and guard their children from it. Why? Look at verse 7. God’s command is that we bring the Word of God to our children, “That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments”. If you do nothing, your children will become as verse 8 says, “a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.” If you do nothing, sin destroy your children’s lives. Satan is “a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Your children’s own sinful nature is waiting to captivate your children. If you do nothing, your children will be slaves to their own sinful desires. God told Cain before he offered his sacrifice, “if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door” (Genesis 4:7). In other words, if you don’t seek God by doing well and seeking His will, then sin is ready to overtake you and dominate you.
Listen to the importance of this truth as I share a sad story with you.
In the early 1900’s a cowboy was traveling alone through a small town in West Texas. It was almost a ghost town, but there was a big landowner there. The landowner saw the cowboy and offered him a job offer to watch over his entire homestead, including his wife and little children while he went into a bigger town to do some business for one day. The cowboy agreed. So the landowner left for the city to do his business.
That evening, after the cowboy was absolutely sure the ranch was safe and secure, he fell into a deep and much-needed sleep. The night seemed peaceful, but suddenly as the sun began to rise, the cowboy was awakened by a lobo wolf howling in the distance, and before he could fully rouse himself he heard the screaming of the landowner’s wife. As the cowboy began to get out of bed he noticed that the woman had already fled the house screaming “I will kill you, I will kill you.” He ran after her and finally caught up to her, but she was in no mood to be stopped. Her continual screaming and flailing of her arms as she ran caused the cowboy to have to physically restrain her into submission. She then fainted and he carried her motionless body back to the house and put her back in bed, where she whimpered and cried herself to sleep.
The next day the landowner returned from the city and the cowboy met him and said, “I need to tell you what happened last night” and went on to describe the hysterics of the landowner’s wife and how he had to restrain her and carry her back to the house. The landowner said, “I suppose I should tell you what happened, I was hoping that my wife would be alright for just one evening.”
He then went on to describe what had happened one terrible day 15 years ago, when his young wife and small child, a 2-and-a-half year old little girl, were outside doing chores. The wife had kept her young daughter close to her throughout the day, all except for one short time when she went into the barn for just a few minutes. Inside the barn she heard the howl of a lobo wolf and as she emerged from the barn she saw the wolf approach her young daughter, grab her by the arm and begin dragging her away.
The woman ran as fast as she could and threw herself toward the wolf but all her efforts were too late. The wolf had dragged off her daughter and she could do nothing to catch it or rescue her daughter.
The landowner returned from his work in the fields that evening and his wife and his daughter were missing—no where to be found. Hurriedly he rounded up as many neighbors as he could and formed a search party.
Late into the evening they heard the sound of a woman’s voice in the distance, and as they went toward the sound the landowner heard his wife screaming through a very hoarse voice “I will kill you, I will kill you,” and found her broken and bruised and torn body laying over a tree where she had fallen. Within a mile they also recovered the clothing of their little two-year-old girl, the wolf having devoured her entirely so that nothing was left of the body for the searchers to find.
Ever since that time the wife would cry out in hysterics when she heard the howl of a lobo wolf, the pain searing her heart with remembrance of her precious daughter who was devoured by it.
Mom and Dad, just as the wolf devoured that little girl, impurity, materialism, immorality, and godlessness is ready to devour your child’s heart and keep him from a life of loving and serving God.
The whole point of this Psalm is that parents must DO SOMETHING, or their children will become like so many before them, “a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God” (verse 8),
· How many times do we need to see kids leave church and never come back?
You cannot trust your child with sinful things. Are there any lobo wolves of sin hiding in your house?
· If you allow your children to play with sin, why should they think that faith in Christ is real at all?
· Unless a child sees Mom and Dad loving God, praying, reading their Bibles, and living out their faith in humble ways in the privacy of the home, a child is most likely not going to take the possibility of knowing God seriously.
· Essentially, for children to follow in their parents’ footsteps, Mom and Dad must own their walk with Christ in a strong and heart felt way.
o When things go wrong, they ought to see Mom and Dad crying on their knees in prayer, not yelling at one another like the world does.
o Our children need to see broken, humble, loving parents that are turning the other cheek to the wrongs that this world brings them.
A comfortable Christianity is one that is not real or genuine. We must not sleep at the door of our houses while the lobo wolves of sin creep in.
Sin will tear you and your children’s lives to pieces.
· How many children who grew up in Christian homes have seen their marriages broken?
· How many children are now living in the world?
· How many children from Christian homes are enslaved to habitual sins?
Brethren, this ought not to be. It ought to be a rare occurrence that a child is lost to the world.
Well, I’m not here to tell you what you don’t already know. Actually this message is really not a negative message. It’s a positive one. It is how we can be the parents that we ought to be! You can do it! That’s what Psalm 78 is all about.
No matter what kind of mess previous generations have made; no matter what mess homes in America are sustaining today, there is hope! God say parents, it’s time to take the reins of responsibility in your home! We must do all that we can to guide our children to God or sin will most certainly take over.
The devil comes to “kill, steal and destroy” (John 10:10). He’s “a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). His purpose in the lure of sinful thoughts and activities is your eternal ruin. He would like to destroy you and all the generations that would seek after God!
My prayer for each of us is that if we would get a glimpse of anything impure that would try and enter our homes, and thereby our children’s hearts, that it would cause such hatred to well up within us, like the cry of the wolf to the landowner’s wife, that we would be resolved with more fervor to kill it entirely.
And though our sin has not yet physically killed our children, it certainly did kill God’s Son. As we view Jesus Christ on the cross, suffering for our sins, with all the wrath of God upon Him and tearing Him to pieces (Isaiah 53:10—“it pleased the LORD to bruise him”, and verses 5-6, “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”.) we would pray to God for strength to destroy that sin which destroyed His Son.
How can we guard our children from the power and influence of sin? Psalm 78 gives us the answer to avoid our kids joining a stubborn and rebellious generation. You can raise your children for God despite the world, the flesh, and the devil! But you need to understand a vital principle.
II. Here it is: Understand the Power of a Parent’s Example.
There’s a stinging indictment in verse 8 about parents. God says, that they “might not be as their fathers.” He’s speaking of parents and grandparents here. Maybe there are some mothers and fathers here tonight, and you grew up in a rebellious generation. God says stop! Be godly! Stop the trend! It’s time to live up to your responsibility as a parent!
How do children learn from us?
A. By our example. You and I often don’t realize the power of simply living for the Lord in front of them. You see, they watch. They listen. They’re not taking notes literally, but they are taking note of every action, and every moment they are applying it to their own hearts. Every decision we make are helping form our children to either excuse their behavior since Mom and Dad did it, or to make the hard choice to do right since they saw Mom and Dad do right.
B. Nothing even comes close to the power of a Mom and Dad’s example.You can never overestimate the power of a Mom or Dad. You might say, “Well, you’re overestimating it. You’re putting too much emphasis on a parent’s role. There’s grandmas and grandpas, there’s teachers and pastors. Yes, all of those have influence, but none compare to Mom. None compare to Dad. There is no opportunity like the opportunity that a parent has.
· Notice, in our passage, Asaph didn’t say, now all you Sunday School teachers make sure you teach the children. Are Sunday School teachers important? Yes!
· But what did Asaph say? He names in verse 3 parents, fathers and mothers are the ones who make the Word of God heard and known. They are the ones who have the influence. Parents, you make the difference in your child’s life! Verse 2-3, “I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old. 3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us”.
Application: Let me encourage all you hard working mothers. Some of you are at home all day long. Some of you have to work, and then you get home and your work never ends. You get lonely and discouraged and tired. You feel like you are just surviving and your life is of little significance. Listen, don’t be overcome by your life. Know that God is all we need. Give your life a living sacrifice to the Lord (Romans 12:1-2). Why? You will reap what you sow in your children. And you have no idea the amount of godliness or ungodliness our children will bring to this world after we die!
Let me illustrate this with a story.
Illustration: You're probably not familiar with the name Max Dukes. Max Dukes lived in New York City over two hundred years ago. Max Dukes even in those days, was known as a hard, hard man. He refused to take his children to church. Even when they asked to go, he forbid them from going to church.
Someone studied Max Dukes family lineage. They were able to trace 1,026 descendents. Of his 1,026 descendents, someone kept record of what this family did. Three hundred of these descendents spent time in prison. The average prison term for those 300 descendents was 13 years. 190 of his descendents were arrested as or known to be prostitutes. Six hundred and eighty were admitted alcoholics. His family cost the state of New York, where they lived, an excess of $420,000 just to incarcerate them and put them in rehab programs, and they made no contribution to society whatsoever that was viewable. Max Dukes had an opportunity to raise his kids up to love God, but he totally blew it. And look at the massive impact the simple decisions he made in raising his family had.
But there was another guy living at the same time as Max Dukes in the very same state of New York. His name was Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan preacher. His sermons are still quoted today. Jonathan Edwards greatest legacy is that he raised his children to love the Lord. Somebody has tracked the descendents of Jonathan Edwards in the same way they checked out Max Dukes. Here’s what they found out. He had 929 known descendents. Of these, 420 of them became preachers and ministers of the Gospel, 86 of them became university professors, 13 of them served as university presidents, 75 went on to author books, 7 of them were elected to the US Congress, 2 were elected to the US Senate, 1 of them was vice president of the United States, and to date his family has never cost the state or the nation one cent, but they have contributed immeasurably to the life of plenty in this land.
What was the difference between Jonathan Edwards and Max Dukes? Jonathan Edwards had a heart for the Lord. He made sure his children served the Lord in the local church. Jonathan Edwards served the Lord as an example before his children to the best of his ability. And tonight saints of God, Jonathan Edwards knew that godly kids don’t happen by accident. It takes diligence, commitment, doing the hard thing, and persevering and not ever ever giving up. You as parents are role models. You are all powerful role models. Those of you here who are not parents, you are also setting a powerful example. The question is: What kind of example are you setting?
Conclusion: More than any other single factor in a child’s life, the presence of a pro-active father and a proactive (involved) mother remains the greatest influence on what a child becomes as an adult. Brothers and sisters in Christ, godly kids don’t happen by accident. Don’t let your kids play with sin! You’ve got to have a home that is regulated and guided by the Word of God and God is loved and His Word is lived out. Parents must be vitally involved and guiding the home. Your example will go on and multiply for generations to come!