An Apologetic for Family Devotions

INTRODUCTION:  I am continually reminded of two things as I stand outside an abortion clinic twice monthly to preach the gospel:  (1) God is totally sovereign in salvation.  (2) I wonder how many of these abortive parents and clinic workers had parents that regularly taught and actually lived out the Bible in from of them?

I am a firm believer in sovereign, monergistic regeneration.  I wouldn’t be standing in this place if I didn’t believe that.  I firmly believe that I can’t save anybody and I can’t change anybody’s mind and that basic presupposition is basis upon which I do all my ministry work.  When I stand to preach in pulpits and on street corners I often ask myself the same question that God asked Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” and of course I always answer myself “O Lord GOD, You know.” (Ezek. 37:3)  Thankfully, the God who ordains the end is the same God that ordains the means to the end and it is those means that He uses to rescue men from their own self-imposed slavery to sin. 

Sometimes, when standing outside of that abortion clinic, cars will roll in with Jesus fish on their windows and Christian stickers on their bumpers, blasting praise and worship music while I’m trying to appeal to these same people to repent and believe the gospel. 

And when I see these things I am reminded of the fact that a blatant contradiction like that can exist because our culture has traded in God’s truth and its application to all areas of life for a mess of worldly pottage known as secular humanism.  Setting the issue of salvation aside for the moment, I have often wondered how many lives would have been saved had those abortive parents been reared in Christian homes with parents that regularly taught them the Bible and lived it out before them through Scripture memorization, catechism work, and regularly spoke to them concerning the glorious things of the gospel when they spent time with their wives and kids.  I have often considered what kind of positive, sin-hindering effect sound Biblical teaching to families would have on the culture. 

Examining the Problems

But what do most professing Christians do?  Husbands and fathers abdicate their responsibility to care for the spiritual needs of their wives, and both parents usually spend time doing what they want to do and if their children are being “discipled”, they leave it up to an immature youth group worker that acts, dresses, talks, and lives pretty much like the world.  Parents also give up their responsibility to know their own faith and propagate it in their own homes, churches, and communities.  The result of failing at family and church discipleship can have disastrous consequences, two of which are (1) the proliferation of false gospels, unbiblical evangelism, and false converts, and (2) promoting of what I call the “passive male syndrome”. 

PROBLEM # 1:  False Gospels and Unbiblical Evangelism produces False Converts

When I evangelize college students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro I hear things like this from professing Christian college students: 

• Dude, I’ve been there done that.  I already prayed the prayer when I was 14.  I’m all good.
• I became a Christian when I was baptized at age 8.
• I’m gay and I love Jesus. 
• I love God and Jesus but I think all religions get you to God.

On June 13, 2011, Tim Challies posted an article titled I Am Not Alarmed[1] where he discusses his reasons for why he thinks so many teens leave churches after High School.  He quotes Barna's statistics:

In September of 2006 George Barna released what must be among his most influential studies. Following interviews with more than 22,000 adults and 2,000 teenagers from across America, he revealed that the majority of twentysomethings who are raised as Christians subsequently abandon the faith. The study found that “most twentysomethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years—and often beyond that. In total, six out of ten twentysomethings were involved in a church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood.

Then Lifeway statistics:

Seven in 10 Protestants ages 18 to 30 — both evangelical and mainline — who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23.

Another study from Church Communication Networks revealed,

. . . that up to 94 percent of Christian teens leave the church within a few years of leaving high school.

Tim then says that he is skeptical of these statistics because,

Looking at the evangelical landscape in the United States (where these studies were performed) and in Canada, I see that the majority of children, and probably the vast majority of children, are raised in churches where what they hear is a false gospel or a gospel that has been emptied of all that makes it the power of God for salvation. We should not be at all surprised that children abandon this kind of a counterfeit gospel as soon as they are able to. I would do the same.

 

The Real Problem:  No Exposure to the Biblical Gospel

I think Tim is spot on.  I think the stats are woefully inaccurate.  Here's why:  I have interviewed hundreds if not thousands of these so-called "former Christians" and “professing Christians” on a local university campus and on the street and few of them have ever been able to give me a decent explanation of what the gospel is.  Moreover, when I explain the true gospel to many of them, they look at me as if I am describing another religion that came from the planet Zorch.  Of course, from their perspective, I am.  This is because for most formerly churched and church attending college kids, Biblical religion is a religion they have never been exposed to.  Instead, some have been immersed into Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, a religion whose "god" is nothing more than a divine butler that meets all of your sinful, wandering desires as long as you measure up to what our trendy society deems a "good person".  Some have been schnookered by Word of Faith or prosperity gospel which has a god that is interested in you being happy, healthy, and wealthy; in other words, a god who is interested in tricking you into thinking that he’ll pad your wallet while you pad the prosperity preacher’s wallet.  Some have come from Roman Catholic or other high-church backgrounds and ditched the smells and bells for something that they deem more intellectually stimulating.  Either way, most of them were either deceived or bored out of their minds with what they thought was Christianity and they ditched it as soon as they could.  I don’t blame them.  

Amazing Malarkey Detectors

Challies goes on to rightly note, "Kids are amazing 'bull detectors'"; in other words, they eventually leave these so-called churches because they recognize that what they are getting from them is nothing more than warmed over pop-psychology, a lousy entertainment-fest, or a spiritual social club that lacks any real content or substance and refuses to deal with the ultimate questions (Who am I?  Why am I here?, etc.).  To make it worse, they don't see changed lives.  Instead, they see their parents and everyone else acting just like the rest of the secular world the other six and half days per week.  They see no family and individual prayer, no talk of the things of God, no doctrinal instruction, no fruits of the Spirit, no sacrifice for others on a regular basis, and in a word, no change.  Why go to a building each week to "play the hypocrite" with a bunch of people who come to hear more "chicken soup for the soul" from a professional public speaker who really isn't that good of a speaker, and get lousy entertainment from the half-baked "praise team" when you can sleep in, watch football, and drink beer with your buddies instead?  After all, for $30-100 or more, you can go to a pop music concert that doesn't moralize you to death with vapid platitudes, is honest about who they are and what they are on about, and isn't seeking to be something they're not, and wants you to sin boldly.  Who in their unregenerate "right" mind wouldn't take the latter over the former?  Also, I am convinced that this partly accounts for the rapid increase in professed skepticism among formerly churched college kids.  After all, the "church" obviously wasn't interested in answering ultimate questions, didn't promote critical thinking and study, and so I'm going to go with those who do!

The Solution:  The Biblical Gospel

 

As Challies notes, the solution is the gospel.  The more children that are exposed to the fact that the Transcendent, Sovereign, Triune, Just, Holy God of Scripture will either give you what you deserve forever in Hell or you will have your sins paid for on the cross of Messiah Jesus, the more true converts you will get and the more you will have children distancing themselves from this gospel because they hate the God of this gospel.   The more boldly and clearly you proclaim the truth, the more some children will believe it by God's sovereign grace, and the more some children will clearly set themselves off from their truly Christian parents and tell them, "I do not believe in Biblical religion.  I know what the Biblical gospel is and what a true Christian acts like, and I am not one of them."  While it is tragic when a kid ditches the gospel for a mess of worldly pottage, it sure is better for them to accurately know where they stand rather than have them think they have some semblance of "pure and undefiled" religion, when they really don't.

PROBLEM # 2:  PASSIVE MALE SYNDROME

 

Passive Male Syndrome is characterized by some of the following symptoms:

• Professing Christian fathers cast off the biblical commands for discipling their children and spiritually nurturing their wives. 
• Professing Christian fathers are involved in a church that is program-centered rather than discipleship-centered. 
• Often, the professing Christian husband/father is living the typical, high-energy, rat-race life in the secular realm.

The Christian husband/father’s job is to be proactive and protective, not passive (Pro. 1:7-8; 3:12; 4:1-5; 6:20-21; 28:7; Eph. 6:4).

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Here are some of my non-profound suggestions for Christian parents:

1.   Fathers, repent for giving up your responsibility to teach your children about God.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4)

• Recognize that your relationship with God is # 1.  When that begins to suffer, everything else does too.  If you don’t care for your own soul you cannot care for the souls of your family.  This means that you generally need to go to bed early enough so that you can get up early enough to read the word, pray, and nourish your own soul.  Then, you focus on prayer for your family and then for your church. 
• Recognize that your children and wife are not going to be here forever but will spend eternity somewhere forever.  This means that you must sacrificially spend plenty of time with them, loving them, discipling them, praying with them and for them.  This means that they come before work and church responsibilities.  Because you love God and realize that they are a gift given to you, you realize that you must spend as much time as possible with them because you are not guaranteed to have them tomorrow (James 4:14).
• Men, recognize that your secular work responsibilities come before your local church ministry responsibilities but you cannot use work as an excuse to avoid your spiritual responsibilities and church involvement.
• Men, recognize that your church responsibilities come after all of that.

2.   Husbands, wash your wife with the water of the word of God and seek to understand her feelings, fears, and needs lest your prayers be hindered:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:25-26) – We are to cleanse our wives with God’s truth just as Christ cleanses His bride with God’s truth!  This can happen on the back porch, at the dinner table, chatting on the beach, etc.

“You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” (1 Peter 3:7)

3.   Wives, submit to your husbands and allow them to lead (Eph. 5:22-24).

“Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. ²⁴ But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.” (Eph. 5:22-24)

• Ladies, please help and encourage your husband in the work of family devotions/discipleship (Pro. 6:20b).

4.   Parents, know God and the gospel.  You can’t teach your children who God is unless you have sufficient knowledge of God’s word and God’s gospel. 

• This means you may need to simplify your life so that you can regularly study the word.
• Husbands and wives can work through the word together.
• Ask your elders for help re: study tools and resources where you can learn to study, read, and accurately interpret the Bible. 
• However, be warned, don’t let this turn into a mere academic exercise.  You are studying to know God better so that you can communicate God’s truth and God’s work in your own life to your family, not to become an academician.

5.   Regularly read the word of God to your entire family (dinner, after-dinner, before bed). 

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Phil. 4:8-9)

• It’s not necessary to read long chapters, but read paragraphs or verses and have some discussion time with your entire family. 
• Don’t be legalistic, be flexible.
• Seek to find ways to make it interesting and fun.  This means you have to know your wife and children well enough to know what interests them.  If they are bored, then you need to change what they are doing. 
• This is supposed to be good news, not bleary-eyed drudgery, so don’t be a legalist.  Jesus’ yoke should be easy and His burden light (Matt. 11:28-30). 

6.   When you spend time with your family, use catechisms, music, objects and events to teach them about God.

• Use can use a doctrinally sound catechism.
• Use the deaths of animals and people to teach your children about what Adam’s sin did to creation generally and mankind specifically.  Then use that to springboard
• Look for opportunities to teach your children about sin, grace, justification, etc. and lovingly call them to repentance over and over again. 
• When they are 6-8 years of age, begin discussing with them what a true Christian “looks like” (i.e., the evidences of regeneration from 1^st John). 

7.   Have a regular time each day where you all spend time together as a family (i.e., dinner, breakfast, back porch, bed-time, etc.) where you and your wife go to God in prayer for your children.

IN CONCLUSION, your family is precious.  Love them with the truth by teaching it and living it before them.  As already noted, there are many different ways to get God’s truth to your family.  All in all, you’re not looking for mere quality time; you are looking for quality time in the midst of quantity time.  Smash your idols and get busy for the Kingdom by starting first in your own home. 

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[1] http://www.challies.com/articles/i-am-unalarmed