Good morning, friends. Welcome again to Sabbath School Study Hour here at the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church. I'd like to welcome our online members and our friends joining us across the country and around the world for our new lesson study quarterly dealing with the subject of the family. And we'll get to that in just a few moments telling you what lesson in particular we'll be studying today. I'd also like to welcome our regular Sabbath School members as well as those who are visiting with us today. And as mentioned, we've been into this new quarter for about four weeks, and we're going to be studying lesson number five dealing with the subject of the family. And today's lesson in particular is entitled, "Wise Words for the Family." And that'll be our study today.
For our friends who are joining us, if you don't have a copy of the lesson quarterly, you'll be able to download today's lesson by simply going to lesson.aftv.org. Again lesson.aftv.org, and we're studying lesson number five so you can click on that, download the study, and you can study along with us.
We do have a free offer we'd like to let you know about, a book entitled "Is It Possible To Live Without Sinning?" This is our free offer today, for anyone in North America, if you'd like to receive a copy of the book, the number to call is 866-788-3966 and ask for offer number 187. If you'd like to receive a digital copy of the book, you need to text the code "SH040" to the number 40544, and you'll be able to download a copy of the book, "Is It Possible To Live Without Sinning?"
Well, before we get to our lesson study today, we have a wonderful treat. We've got a group entitled One Accord, and they're going to be bringing us a musical number at this time, a very appropriate song for today. The song is entitled "The Sabbath."
From the beginning You loved us
And from Your heart
You have expressed it
Through the eternal gift that You gave
In only six days You created
The world a masterpiece You painted
But the seventh was exceptional
Maker of the Universe
I praise You on the Sabbath Day
I thank You for this time
That You have hallowed
A day that I can rest in You
Glorious and Holy
A day that You delight in
A gift for the world that You created
I worship on the day
That You have given me
As time passed by we grew so distant
And we forgot the gift You gave us
The gift that will remind us who You are
Maker of the Universe
I praise You on the Sabbath Day
I thank You for this time
That You have hallowed
A day that I can rest in You
Glorious and Holy
A day that You delight in
A gift for the world that You created
I worship on the day
That You have given me
I'm the one who sanctifies it
You will find your joy in Me
And I will cause you to
Ride the heights of the land
The mouth of Jehovah says these
Maker of the Universe
I praise You on the Sabbath Day
I thank You for this time
That You have hallowed
A day that I can rest in You
Glorious and Holy
A day that You delight in
A gift for the world
That You created
I worship on the day
That You have given me
I worship on the day
That You have given me
I worship on the day
That You have given me
Amen.
Let us have prayer. Dear Father in heaven, we thank You for the opportunity that we have to gather together on this Your Sabbath day to open up Your Word and talk about a very important subject to You, an important subject to us and that is the family. So we do pray that Your Spirit to guard our hearts, our minds as we open up the scriptures, for we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Our lesson today is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug.
Welcome, morning! Want to welcome any visitors here to Granite Bay if you're in the area visiting, we're glad you're with us today and want to welcome our friends who are joining us for our Sabbath School Study Hour. The majority of churches in case you didn't know around the world are less than 100 members. And a lot of churches do not have a full time pastor. And we're very thankful that here at Granite Bay, we're able to help provide some study for people who are shut-ins, they can't go to church, and we just met someone else this week. They said, "I'm so thankful, this is my Sabbath School class because of my health I cannot go," or some people are isolated and so there's thousands of people around the world that study with us or they're one of our online members, and we want to welcome you.
And I want to remind you, Pastor Ross mentioned a special gift offer that goes with today's study. We'll say more about it at the end as well. It's called "Is it Possible To Live Without Sinning?" Now, people read that title and they think, "Oh, that's a scary title." You ought to read this book. It's really good. I read it once when I was flying a plane, I put the plane on autopilot. And I read the book. It was a long trip, and it really encouraged me. So if you've not read that, I'd like to encourage you to do that.
We're in lesson number five today going through our study dealing with family seasons. And the lesson title is talking about words of wisdom or wise words for families. The title is because most of what you find in the lesson is talking about Proverbs of Solomon that deal with the family. Some of the different proverbs that would address family life. It's quite a few actually.
And we have a memory verse. And the memory verse is from Proverbs 3:5-6. I bet most of you have already memorized this. But if not, this is a good time to start. Why don't you say that with me, Proverbs 3:5-6, and here it's in the New King James Version. You ready? "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths." That is a great promise for any young person, any person that is looking for guidance in their life, trust the Lord with all of your heart. And He will direct your paths if you do that.
Now, in our study, it's broken up into several segments. As I said, most of the scriptures you're going to find in your lesson come from Proverbs, but I've taken the liberty of getting some other related verses from a few places around the Bible. First section is love the right woman, as opposed to the wrong woman, or if you have the right woman, don't be loving any other woman is what this is talking about.
Now, if you go to the Book of Proverbs Chapter 5, there is, there in the beginning, a statement, and I guess it starts with verse 3 here. "For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. Lest you ponder her path of life, and her ways are unstable, you do not know them. Therefore hear me now, my children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house."
What's he talking about here? It's really talking about adultery and or fornication. Adultery is for a person who is married, if they violate the marriage vows, but the seventh commandment also encompasses fornication, sex outside of the marriage relationship. And here, Solomon is repeating words, he no doubt heard from his father. Now, how would David be an expert on this? Would David know that that didn't end well in his affair and he would have thought he had enough wives, he had like nine wives before Bathsheba. And it also mentions concubines and it led to all kinds of heartache, ultimately the death of four of his sons. And Solomon ended up going down the same road.
Now, what is the most important thing a father and mother can do to teach their children, marital fidelity? Example, be faithful to your spouse. Let them see you, showing appropriate affection for your spouse and faithfulness. Don't ever let them see you getting too friendly with the opposite sex. There's a parable I heard years ago. A queen that had a castle high up on a hill with a long, windy trail and all these switchbacks with sharp ravines and cliffs. Her carriage driver died and she needed to interview and hire a new carriage driver. And they needed exceptional skill in controlling the horses because of the treacherous road. So the first one interview, she hopped in the back of her carriage, she says, "Okay, I want you to take me up to the palace." Said, well I got to impress her that I can really control these horses. He said, "I'm going to go up the hill and I can keep this carriage exactly one foot away from the edge the whole time. And he did. The queen made no comments, she looked very carefully, he got to the top, she said thank you very much, she made a note.
Went back down to the bottom, interviewed the next carriage driver. He had seen what had happened. He thought, I'm gonna have to do better than this guy. I can get that carriage within six inches of the lip and maintain that the whole way up. And so he took her up and he was very skilled and he kept the thing right there six inches away from the lip, the precipice of the edge. And she took some notes and went back down again and interviewed the last one, the last one. He hugged the inside of the road all the way up, even scraping the carriage against the hillside, a couple of places in the bushes. She hired him. She said, "I don't want a carriage driver that sees how close to the edge he can get. I want one that'll stay as far away from the edge as possible."
How do you preserve your vows in marriage? By seeing how close to the edge you can get? You stay as far away from that edge as you can. You do not play with temptation. I think it's a good practice that if you're married, if you're a woman, that you have no male friends other than your husband. If you're man that you have no female friends, I mean no. If they are, you know, 50 years older, then people will probably wink at that. But if they're in the ballpark of potential temptation, don't have any girlfriends if you're a man, if you're married, your wife is your girlfriend. I think you need to avoid getting close.
You know how often, you've heard this story. Guy works with the secretary. They get close, they spend a lot of time together and then one of them goes through an emotional crisis and they start confiding in the other. And the next thing you know what happens? People never question my secretary because it's my mother-in-law. So I told you, I'm as safe, I stay as far away from the edge as you can be. Not really, and if you know that there's an area of temptation, if you find somebody that you see that you're attracted to, don't flirt with them, don't want to know if they also feel the same way. Just realize in your heart that the human heart is evil, desperately wicked, who can know it, don't trust your own heart. And you stay away from those, those areas.
So that's some of the Proverbs, quite a bit of this, and I'm not going to read all of Chapter 5 for you. Well, he does say in verse 15, "Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well. Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the street? Let them be only your own, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth." Now, that's using Hebrew poetry and it's talking about that intimacy of marriage should only be for your spouse. It says, "Always be enraptured with her love." That's verse 19.
Someone's going to read for me 1 Timothy 3:2. Just a moment, Haffdis, I'll read Proverbs 31. Now, we'll read more of Proverbs 31 later, but notice here it says, "Who can find…" Verse 10, "Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trust in her, so she will have no lack of gain." So having trust in your spouse, you want to have a relationship where you're not jealous, you're not worried. You don't want to do anything that makes the other person jealous or worried. And trust is such an important thing. I never ever have to worry. It never even crosses my mind. When you've got that love, and that trust, and that commitment in a marriage, it just gives you a lot of peace and harmony in the home.
I had a friend and I don't know whether he earned it or not, but his wife… She used to watch a lot of soap operas, she probably was part of the problem. And on the soap operas, people are always cheating and run around behind each other's backs. Now, don't ask me how I know that because I don't watch soap operas, but I know just enough about it. And whenever he come home, she's like going up and sniffing his collar and looking from perfume and looking for lipstick, and she just never trusted him. And I knew the guy. Sometimes he was out with me doing a Bible study, she says, "Where have you been?" No. And it just was, it was miserable and when there's no trust. So you want to have a relationship with the wife and the husband can, it says, "His heart trusts in her." Please read for me, 1 Timothy.
1 Timothy 3:2, "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach."
Now the part here I wanted to emphasize is very simple, husband of how many wives? One. What is God's plan? In the beginning He made Adam and Eve. It was not Adam and Eve, and Veronica, and Jane, and Betty. It was just Adam and Eve. And God's plan is for a man to have one wife and a wife to have one man.
Every now and then you hear in the news about one of these sorrow stories about some guy that's actually had two or three wives around the country and they don't know about the other spouse. They think he's just traveling for work, kind of bouncing from family to family. I don't know why a guy would want to do that. That would seem to be really difficult to not just maintain the lie but support multiple families like that. Anyway, so that's the plan, one man, one woman.
Now, some people think that… You don't hear the word sex in church very often because it's viewed as a dirty word. And in the context of our culture, it's always associated, often associated with things that are unsavory. But technically did the devil invent sex or God? God. And so in the Hebrew mind, they saw that sex was a beautiful thing, read Song of Solomon, within the marriage, in the original plan, and it's a blessing.
I'm not going to take a lot of time to talk about this, but we get the question every now and then that because the Sabbath is holy, is sex forbidden on the Sabbath? And, because it says, not doing thine own pleasure. That's a misunderstanding in my opinion, I say this by permission and not by commandment. But how many of you enjoy eating food on Sabbath? Do you find it pleasant? Anyone want to admit to that? So that verse is not saying that you can't enjoy any blessed pleasures.
What day of the week did God make Eve? Adam and Eve, sixth day, you all with me? Which would have been Friday? What's the next day that would have been the honeymoon? Can you really imagine God saying, he or she, yes, I now pronounce you man and wife, you can touch her on Monday.
So, you know, I don't want to again build too much into that. But I think the reason that some people ask that question is we come away with the idea that there's something dirty or sinful about sex within a marriage. What's this next verse say? Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled…" That word undefiled means pure. "But for indicators and adulterers, God will judge."
Now notice the contrast Paul's making here, says, marriage is pure, marriage is honorable. It's undefined in a marriage, it's blessed. It's supposed to be a wonderful thing. But then he contrasts that blessed relationship and covenant. He says, but don't be mistaken fornicators and adulterers. Those are the ones breaking the seventh commandment, God will judge. And it's listed among the things that those that practice these things will not be in the kingdom of heaven. And in case there's any ambiguity, all we have to do is read Matthew 19:4, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh?'" Now, that's the same phrase of God saying the Father and I are one. Jesus said to the apostles, I pray that you may be one, meaning the church members, it's to be a loving, pure united relationship. "They two become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man put asunder or separate." Those are usually the words that I speak at a wedding just before they get to kiss each other. Karen says, that's her favorite part. What God has joined together, let not man separate.
And, now, some other words of wisdom. This isn't directly from Proverbs, but one of the reasons that sometimes marriages drift apart is we don't accept and respect that declaration that you are one flesh, and that really you support each other, you belong to each other in a sense. Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 7:3, "Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority on her own body, but the husband does." Now, that verse can be abused if it's read by itself. "Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except with consent for time that you might give yourselves to fasting and prayer." Notice, he puts marital intimacy and food in the same category.
So there may be a time where you say we're going to fast whether it's a Sabbath or any day of the week, from food and intimacy, and you agree mutually for that. You can't be saying, every time your spouse is interested, I'm fasting. Because now I say this, this is important, not in jest, because in marriage counseling, you sometimes find that when there are problems in a relationship, they've been festering for a while, there's also been no coming together for a long time. And people start looking outside for affection. And that leads to all kinds of problems. So, a multitude of marriages could be saved if they would pay attention to this verse. He said, "If you're going to fast and pray, that's fine, but then come together again that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self control."
All right, enough about that. Now it's under the section a call to fathers. Fathers typically in the Bible are understood to be good providers and protectors for the family. They were also seen as the authority in the family. And women often were there to provide defense and protection for the children. The fathers also protect the family, but they sometimes were looked upon for the discipline. How many mothers have said, wait until your father gets home? You ever heard that line before? All right. Proverbs 13:22," A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous." So what it's saying here is that a father is not only earning and providing for the family, but he's even saving so that he's thinking about their future. Father's doing what? He's thinking about their future. Good fathers are concerned with the eternal future of their children, not only that they might have an inheritance.
What's the most important inheritance that a father wants to leave his children? An eternal one. And how do you provide that inheritance? By a good example. There's some statements in Advent Home and other books that basically the first concept that a child gets of God is through its parents. A child will see that love and that authority, that guidance, that sacrifice in the life of the parents. You want to reflect God as much as you can. That's what a Christian is. You're trying to model and reflect the life of Jesus in your life, and that will be seen to the children, and it gives them their first concept of God. God is the one who provides.
Doesn't Jesus use the example? "If your child asks for a loaf of bread, will you give him a stone? If he asks for an egg, will you give him a serpent? If he asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion?" There's one more, and he says, "If you ask for fish, will you give him a serpent?" Right? And says, "If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give to those that need Him and to those that ask? So here Jesus is drawing that analogy, you in giving and providing for your children are giving your children a picture of God providing for us. God provides, but you know what it says? If the child asks for a loaf of bread, for an egg, for fish, what are we supposed to do with our Heavenly Father? Ask. It's okay to ask.
We need to pray, and so God wants to teach us to provide. Proverbs 27:23, "Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, and attend your herds." Now, what flock and herd is it talking about? Not just the flock outside in the ranch, but fathers need to be careful about the flock that's under the roof. Be diligent to know the state of your thoughts.
How often do fathers and I've been guilty of this, so I'm talking about myself. You wake up, you go to work, you come home, you're exhausted. You, you know, try and take care of your follow up work. You got to say hi to the wife and kids, spend a little time and then you go to bed. You really don't have a lot of quality time with the family and you don't know what's going on in their lives. You don't know what's happening in the life of the flock. And so many children when interviewed would say, yeah, I grew up, some never had a father. Some say I had a father, but it's like I never connected because he was always working. You don't want to be so busy with the providing of funds, and resources, and things that you're not providing of yourself. And I think this is a big mistake the fathers make.
My dad was notorious for this. I tried to talk to him in the morning, he was workaholic. He looked over the newspapers as he was checking on the stocks, he'd grunt, he'd come home late in the day, sometimes 6 or 7 o'clock, he already stopped, and eaten, and drank, and he came home a little inebriated, and then he fell asleep, woke up and did it again the next day. And it's like you have no relationship, and I've to fight not being the same way.
We have a flock. What's the most important flock you want to take care of? Jeremiah 13:20, "Lift up your eyes and see those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, the beautiful sheep?" Now someday God is going to ask every parent, "Where's your flock?" And He wants to know, are you caring for their needs? Do you know the state of your flock? Is what Proverbs said. You need to know what's going on in their lives. How many parents have been shocked to discover, "I had no idea that my child had a drinking problem. I had no idea that my child was using drugs. I had no idea that my child was out shoplifting with the hoodlums." They'd come home and act like little angels. And you wonder sometimes where they're at, but you know, you figured everything's okay. And you got to start asking questions, spend time with them. Find out who they're with.
Get a satellite tracking device. They have them now. You can put an app on your kid's phone and know where they are and who they're talking to. And you need to know not only where they're going when they're out of the house, you need to know where they're going when they're in the house and they're on the computer. That's a big problem these days, is kids are in the room and we think, "Oh, they're at the home all the time." We spend a lot of time at home with our kid, but they're in the room online. You don't know who they're talking to, what they're doing, or they're on their phone. And don't be afraid to tell them as long as you're under my roof and I'm paying the bills, I have a right to know, God gave me that permission. And you ask them those questions.
Amen? Amen. Know the state of your flocks. Okay. Proverbs 1:8-10, "My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother." So it's also now for children, not just fathers, mothers, children, listen, "Honor your father and mother," fifth commandment, listen to them, their commandments, they made mistakes I don't want you to make, trust them. "It will be a graceful ornament on your head and a chain about your neck. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent."
Listen to your parents. Don't hang around with the wrong crowd. And there's just a whole passage there you can read in Proverbs 1 about the wisdom from a father. Teach them to be God fearing. The children are going to see your reverence for God and that will be replicated in their lives. You know, I've often seen that… It's even more important with the mother. I don't know why, but somehow the mother seems to have a bigger impact on the heart of the child when it comes to reverence. A lot of people I know that have been very reverent people, very committed people, they learned this from their mothers having devotions with them when they were young. But have regular devotions, teach them to fear God. I think it's both, it's important for both parents but I've just observed, you know, I'll ask my friends who I notice are very reverent people, I'll say, "Where do you learn that?" They say, "Oh, my mother, when I was very young taught me to fear God."
Now, there's some proverbs here still under the category of anger. Someone's going to read for me in a moment, Proverbs 16:32? Because fathers might be involved in discipline, it doesn't mean that, that you ever lose control, you should never lose your temper. If a parent loses their temper and punishes their children in anger, I think the Spirit of Prophecy says, "You will beat more devils into your children than out by disciplining them in anger." I thought that kind of shook me one time. You will beat more devils into your children than out if you punish them in anger. Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger." And I found that you ever, when the kids are little, you know and you're trying to get their attention and you're in the public store or something like that. And you say, you know, hey, Daniel, come over here. Daniel come over here, you ever noticed, parents keep raising their voices and sometimes they're yelling at their kids.
With my kids, we taught them that you might, you know, once they just don't hear you, you check the second time, maybe they just didn't hear because there's outside noise interference actually don't hear you. Second time I raise my voice a little bit and then I thought, no, they heard me. Now it's question if they're not listening, then what I do is I would say, Daniel, get over here. When I gave them the soft voice, they knew that was the last warning. I didn't keep raising it. I knew they heard me and I'd lower my voice. And then they go, oh-oh, and that was like, you know, then you got to listen. So you want your children…
We kind of had a rule and you know, we made a lot of mistakes. But the kids were pretty good about listening when we said, we're not counting to three. After you, after I know you heard me. If you don't, if you want your kids to obey you after you warned them three times, they'll always wait until the third time. If you want your kids to obey you the first time, then once you know they've heard you, that's the time.
Now, you know, sometimes you might extend grace. But when they're young, if you want them to be kids that listen the first time they hear you, then you discipline them after the first time if they ignore you, you get their attention, they'll start paying attention to your voice if they've heard you. And sometimes we're in public, you know, I never used to like kids yelling across the store, their children and their parents threatening their children and kids having, ever seen kids having the fit. Parents are dragging them through the store and they're having a meltdown. They're rolling back and forth in the aisles because they're not getting the thing they wanted, till the parents finally give in and you got two problems. One, you let them roll around in the aisle, the other one you gave them what they want it. Anyone else with me out there?
So, there is a time for discipline, but it should never be done in anger. Proverbs 15:18, "A wrathful man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allays or smoothes contention." If you're wrathful, it stirs it up in your family as well as other places. I've noticed that children that lose their tempers become angry and are yelling in school or public, they often hear that at home. That's the way their parents communicate. That's how they've learned to do it. Go ahead and please read for me, Proverbs 16:32?
Proverbs 16:32, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."
When you lose your temper, who finds it? It's like you've lost control of something. Who has control when you lose it? People when they lose their temper are at least temporarily demon possessed. We probably all seen it. And then afterward they say, "I'm sorry, I lost my temper. I wasn't myself." Well, who were you? Wasn't spirit lead or was spirit lead, but which spirit? Right? And so, you know, you count to 10, do what it takes but you don't, people usually say things that they regret. They do things they regret when they lose their temper. It says, "He who controls his spirit is stronger than a mighty man who conquers a city." Because if you can conquer your offended pride and your temper, and that's what it often is, that you're not getting your way or someone has not appreciated you and people get angry.
But some people yell when they're angry. Other people do different things. Some people get angry, they start breaking things. I knew this one family that one spouse would get angry and they started throwing things, many expensive things would get broken whenever there was a fight. But well, then that's the wasteful. Others do the silent treatment. They've lost their temper, but now they don't say anything and they stew. It's like a pressure cooker, waiting for it to go. And they still lost their temper because they're raging inside. And that's not a lot better. So God wants us to have that control because otherwise what are you teaching your children? God is so merciful, He's so patient, we should have that patience.
Now is there a time for response? There's a time to respond, but don't do it in anger. Proverbs 15:27, "He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live." Let your children and your family see integrity. God is going to arrange opportunities in your life for your kids to see you tempted to compromise integrity, it will go so far. You get paid too much at the market. Let your kids see you. It's a teachable moment. Let them see you say, "Oh, they gave me too much. We need to go back to the store." They will never forget that. And they will also never forget if you say hey, lucky me, they paid me too much. They'll think it's okay then to take ill-gotten gain.
I never forgot. I was with my mother at Bloomingdale's, and she showed me how to shoplift something. What do think happened? I end up becoming their shoplifter when I was a teenager. Your kids, that makes a big impression. They ever see you tell a little lie, and they, you know… My mother used to say, I would come, she'd take us to the theater. It say if you're under 12 it's one price, if you're over 12 it's another price. I'm 13. She said, "Doug say you're 11, you look young." I thought, well, that's lying. So what was she teaching me? Bending the truth. And so these little things are so important. Greed for gain, you trouble your own soul.
Let them see that you're generous. If your kids… Nathan and I were driving down the street one day, and we saw a guy who was pulling, the homeless man was pulling a little chariot, a little trailer behind his bicycle, and the wheel had come off and he was trying to fix it. And I said to Nathan, you know, we're around the corner. So why don't we go grab the toolbox, see if we can help this guy. And so we turned back to the house. We went around the corner and we came back and he was very helpful. We were able to, you know, I had some inner tube and stuff that you can take strips, and we patched up his tire, it was in bad shape and got him going down the road again. Gave him a few dollars for something to eat and… Now, Nathan can't drive by a homeless person without trying to stop and help them. He almost takes it too far. But they'll never forget those things. And so let them see that generosity.
Proverbs 29:17, "Correct your son and he will give you rest. Yes, he will give your soul delight." There's a time for correction. And this is under the section correction with love. Someone's going to read for me Proverbs 3:12 in just a moment. I'll read another one first. Proverbs 10:17, "He who keeps instruction is in the way of life, but he who refuses correction goes astray." Ever know somebody you can't tell them anything 'cause they think they know everything and they will, they're too proud.
I had a friend that he got in a pickup truck, he had never driven a standard before you know where you shift. He didn't want to admit that he didn't know how. And so he's going down the road grinding the gears all up. And I said let me help you. No, no. I know how to do it. And he said something like, you know, theory, the conventional wisdom is, these days the truck actually runs better if you never get out of second gear. He was too proud to admit he didn't know how to get into third gear and he made up this big story. He just, I never met somebody who was so stubborn to admit that he didn't know something. And so what's the result? He's grinding the gears in all the cars because he wouldn't admit and he wouldn't ask for instruction, how do you shift and press the clutch in? All right, go ahead. You can read for me.
" For whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights."
Thank you very much. Yeah, that's Proverbs 3:12, whoever the Lord loves, He correct. So don't be thinking there's something wrong with correction. Now Proverbs got some pretty strong pictures of correction. You know, it talks about, look at Proverbs 23:13, "Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You will beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell." Now that verse has been misapplied. But there is a place for what we would call corporal punishment. Matter of fact, I believe the Lord has prepared a place for that. Now, I know that in our culture today, if you say that, it's almost like you start looking around for Child Protective Services, because some people have been abusive with their children, everybody is so afraid, and they think that there's no proper place for getting a child's attention. They think all you can do is send them to the corner for quiet time. It doesn't always work.
You know, when our kids were little, and we lived by a busy, notorious street. Out on the mission, there is a busy highway, a lot of drinking on the highway. And we told them, you're never to cross over the irrigation ditch and get out in the road. And one day I caught one of our kids out there, had gotten a new little bike, he learned to ride without training wheels and took off. I looked out there and he's right in the middle of a four lane road riding around. He's only like four or five years old. And I was, my heart stopped in my chest because he was just kind of figuring, it was morning, there weren't that many cars. And he thought, "Well, I'll see him coming, I'll get out of the way." He didn't know I was watching. I ran out there and got him, got his bike. I threw his bike as far as I could. And he was scared. And I went back in the house and knelt down and said, Daniel, let's thank the Lord together that you're alive where I can spank you. He never did it again. There is a time for that.
Now when it says a rod, it's not talking about a baseball bat. They had a switch, that word doesn't translate very well. In America, it was very common for kids to go pick a willow switch for their parents. And any of you ever read the story of HMS Richard Sr., where he tells about, he was being very difficult. And his dad was out and his mother had the responsibility of discipline. And she had spanked him with a switch before and it wasn't better. So she told him to go pick out a switch. And he said… He went got one, she says, it's s not big enough. So I went out, it was a little, little thing, she said, "Get a bigger one, get a bigger one." He went two or three times and came with a big one. And she bent her back for him. She said I want you to beat me, because I have failed as your mother to teach you. I can't do that mother. She says, "No, I insist you beat me." And he just broke down, he never did. But he changed, he said, that he never disobeyed his mother, got the idea of how it hurt her for him to disobey.
We need to teach the children that it hurts Jesus when we disobey. Then when they see Him on the cross, it's our sins. And if they love the Lord, they're not going to want to grieve Him. So that's part of good parenting to get that through. The rod was not an instrument to be dreaded. How many know Psalm 23? "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." And the rod was there also to protect the sheep, as well as the occasional discipline.
And Hebrews 12:9, "Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they are earthly fathers, indeed, for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He, our Heavenly Father, for our profit, that we might be partakers of His Holiness." God chastens us. We go through trials and discipline, because He loves us. He's trying to save us for eternity. So someone once said, draw near the one who holds the rod and it will lessen the blow.
You know that. I remember, a preacher was saying that his mother would get upset and she get a switch, and she'd start to swat him. He said, I found if I got in close and hugged her, it didn't hurt me as much. It says you get out further away, the centrifugal force, it hurts a lot more, so get in close. Draw near the one who holds the rod and it will lessen the blow. Amen?
And what's one of the most important things for fathers? Teach the Word in your family. Deuteronomy 11:18, "Therefore bind up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, bind them as a sign on your hand, they will be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children speaking of them, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up," look for opportunities in everyday life, to be talking about the Word of God and bring it and apply it, bring it into application. "You'll write it on the doorpost of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth." He's talking about eternal life comes from teaching the Word of God to your family.
Now, I know I don't have much time left but this is probably a good thing because now he talks about life is better on a rooftop. You know what these verses are about? Dwelling with a contentious spouse. Proverbs 21:9, "Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house with a contentious woman." Solomon saying in tongue-in-cheek, you're better off living in an attic by yourself. I think in other places, yeah, he does, Proverbs 27:15, "A continual dripping on a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike, whoever restrains her restrains the wind, and grasps the oil with his right hand."
We had a little inside joke. In one of the churches I pastored, not this one, don't worry. We had one member that would corner us every day, and talk to us and would tell us about the problems. We try to solve our problems and it never got any better. This went on for years. And we said it's like shoveling air. You just don't get anywhere. You don't know what's happening. Now, that can be a spouse, it could be man, it could be a woman. But Proverbs, Solomon had how many wives? Too many? That's all you need to know. I think it was 300 concubines and 700 wives. And he said, "Better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. Better to be a hermit."
Now, can you find examples in the Bible of someone that experienced that? How about Samson? How was it that his wife got the riddle from him? Judges 14:17, "Now she wept on the seven days…" It's supposed to be a wedding feast. "She wept on him the seven days while their feast lasted. And it happened on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him so much." And then she betrayed his secret. How did Delilah get the secret from Samson? "And it came to pass he pestered him daily with her words and pressed him so that his soul was vexed to death."
Now again, some of you may be married to a man that nags, and Bible tells us it can happen with a woman. Don't harangue and nag your spouse. Once they know what it is, if they made a mistake, don't continually remind them. Can I hear an amen? Now then it goes into, it closes out with the ideal wife. And this is always intimidating for women to hear Solomon talk about the perfect wife. It's Proverbs 31:10, "Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trusts in her, he will have lack no gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and willingly works with her hands. She is like the merchant ships, she brings her food from afar. She rises while it's yet night…"
Karen says, "Don't quote that to me." "She rises while it's yet night and provides food for her household, and a portion for her maidservants. She considers a field and she buys it…" She is a businesswoman. "From her profits she gains and plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength, and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good, and her lamp does not go out by night. She stretches out her hand to the distaff and her hand to the spindle, she weaves the clothing for children, the clothes, the scarlet, it goes on and on. You read the rest of the chapter, it talks about the perfect wife.
First and foremost, Proverbs 31 is talking about the bride of Christ. You look at the analogies and the metaphors that are being used are metaphors for salvation. And so, but that doesn't mean this is not something that you would strive for.
Just I'll close with this, just this. A little more than a week ago, I went and met a cousin that I knew about but I'd never met we met online, he's, we call him Uncle Bill. But he's actually a cousin, for he is my father's cousin. And 90 years old, lives in Southern California, went to see him and I told Karen, I said, "You know, I get email from every now and then, he's still very lucid and sends me funny things in the email and, interesting guy, he is the world's foremost expert on flashlights. He wrote an encyclopedia of flashlights, who would have thunk, right? And he's got an incredible collection of flashlights, all very neat all around the house. But his wife has passed away. She died a couple of years ago. And he says, "I was married to an absolute angel." I told Karen, he says, "His wife was an angel. She was the most perfect human who ever lived." He told me that. I thought, wow, he married the Proverbs 31 woman. And she thought I was kidding. But then we went to visit and he just, he had her music playing in the background that she had composed, had her pictures everywhere and had pictures and she played organ, he doesn't play anything. He still got her three organs and a piano in the house, two organs and a piano. And he just, he said, I'm not sad, people think I'm sad. He said, "I'm the luckiest man in the world. I was married to the most perfect human being that ever lived. She was an angel." I thought wow, I doubt she was perfect, but he looked at her that way.
Wouldn't it be great if everybody could tell others about their spouse like that instead of throwing them under the bus? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Some good lessons in Proverbs. We are out of time. I want to remind you, don't cut me off yet until I get to remind you about our gift book. If you've not read this you really should, it's a classic, "Is It Possible To Live Without Sinning" by Joe Crews. It's a good book. It has a good biblical, scripturally supported base for that principle. And you'll be encouraged by what you read. If you want to text it, so you can download it, text SH040 to this number 40544 you can call, get it for free in North America, 866-788-3966. Make sure and ask for offer number 187, and we'll send it to you. Thank you, friends, for joining us, God willing, we will do this again next week.
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My parents got divorced when I was three or four, and then, I was basically unchurched most of my life. I had a girlfriend in high school telling me that she had to break up with me because I wasn't a Christian. I thought that's weird, I believe in God, why would she say that? Not realizing I was living a horrible life with foul language, was mean, and other stuff. And that kind of challenged me initially, and then my dad, 9/11 woke him up. He wasn't ready to meet his Lord though he was a man that I valued and knew he loved me, didn't doubt that. But he just knew he needed more. So he started watching TV ministries first. Baptist preachers, and others, and he was kind of intrigued by what he was learning, and so when he turned me on to this television station, first thing that I got access to was Doug Batchelor's Most Amazing Prophecies series that he did in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
And I remember when I first watched this, my background was Baptistish of sorts, but I remember when I first watched the series, I remember thinking I've never heard that before about the State of the Dead, or about the Sabbath, or the Commandments, or the Rapture, other things. I remember thinking to myself, I've never heard that before, but that's what the text says, and that kept happening, and I had this experience of just wondering like, "Well, what else have I believed that isn't as it is, you know?" And the more I watched, the more helpful it became. But again, he kind of took a different perspective on the messages. It was fresh to me, but I just... These things I had never heard before, and I just realized like, "There's so much stuff in the Bible that no one's talking about and that people need to know."
And so I ended up in this awkward situation that some of my friends who didn't believe what I was coming to believe, I didn't know how to communicate with them, and so one of the things that helped me initially was the SabbathTruth.com website, the truth about Hell.com, and the truth about death. And some of those resource websites that Amazing Facts had put together, they were just full of resources. If I needed an answer to something that someone brought up, there would be a 95% chance that Amazing Facts would have something that I could use. It makes witnessing even easier in that sense.
The Amazing Facts Prophecy Study Bible was my first real Bible that I had of a more trusted translation. The Bible study guides were on the back of it and lot of other resources that were helpful. If you can hand a book to somebody and you can pick up a phone and call Amazing Facts, you have everything you need. And so I was just printing off stuff and handing it to people, you know, like, here's what I'm coming to realize, this is true, it's in the Bible. And it was a huge blessing to me, and a real help just to kind of help me to better understand what the message was, and understand it for myself, and have resources to put in the hands of the other people, it was invaluable.
Some time went by, I eventually went to school of evangelism, and was baptized. And then I had this amazing opportunity that after being in the ministry for about 5 or 6 years, Doug Batchelor was going to be the main speaker at youth events, and I was actually going to be doing a similar at this youth event. And it was just this amazing kind of full circle experience that the first person that I came in contact within Adventism, to hear the message to have it make sense, to be able to do ministry together with him in whatever role possible just meant the world to me, and to be able to tell him my story and tell him thank you was invaluable. And so God just gave me a precious gift and afforded an opportunity and I'll never forget that. My name is Dee. Thank you for changing my life.
Let's face it, it's not always easy to understand everything you read in the Bible. With over 700,000 words contained in 66 books, the Bible can generate a lot of questions. To get biblical straightforward answers, call into Bible Answers Live, a live nationwide call-in radio program where you can talk to Pastor Doug Batchelor and ask him your most difficult Bible questions. For times and stations in your area or to listen to answers online, visit bal.amazingfacts.org.