“See to it that there is no one who takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception in accordance with human tradition, in accordance with the elementary principles of the world, rather than in accordance with Christ.” Colossians 2:8
Ninth Indictment: A Replacement of the Scriptures with Psychology and Sociology Regarding the Family
I have a ninth indictment, and this is very important to me as an older man with a young family. I didn’t get married until I was 30. My wife had something of a little brain tumor for the first eight years. We couldn’t have children and then, oh, praise God, a child was born and then another and then another and then, who knows?
My dear friends, pastors, and leaders, think about this. Our Sunday morning services are so cosmetic. Just because there seems to be beautiful worship, and the sermon went well, and people seem to be moved, that is not evidence of real spirituality. I will tell you what evidence is: the home, the marriages, the families.
“In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17:6). When I travel, and I meet all kinds of people, I try to find a godly man who has raised godly children, and I go and latch on to him. But in most cases do you know what I find out? Most of the people I talk to in church want to discuss old wives’ tales and sociology and every other thing. It is all about what is right in their own eyes, and they can’t give me one Bible verse. But every once in a while I find a man and a woman who set themselves to rear their family according to Scripture—and the difference is overwhelming!
When I am on an airplane, I love to do this. Men will sit down beside me and they will ask, “What do you do?” I say, “Oh, I’m a husband.” They ask, “Oh, what else do you do?” “Oh, I’m a father.” “What else do you do?” “Well, if I have any time left over, I preach a little.”
What does it matter if a man wins the whole world and loses his own family? Let me put it to you this way: Upon what are you rearing your children and loving your wife? Based upon what? If you can’t start going into Scriptures right now and showing me how your family is founded upon it, I can assure you, you are a captive to psychology, sociology, and the whims and lies of this age. You see, you don’t have the right to follow all these other things. You have no authority apart from the Word of God.
Look at Genesis 18:19. “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.” What a beautiful way this is!
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God ”(Rom 12:1- 2). Verse 2 tells us that the will of God is perfect. So if you ever come up with this idea as a man of God, “I am sacrificing my family for the sake of the ministry,” I will tell you: you are a bold faced liar. You are sacrificing your family for the sake of the little kingdom you are trying to build. I can say that because the will of God is perfect; that means I do not have to violate the will of God with regard to my family, in order to fulfill the will of God with regard to my ministry. God doesn’t need you! He does require, however, that you be obedient.
It is like when someone asked me one time, “Brother Paul, are you against evangelism?” I said, “Yes and no. I am not against biblical evangelism, but I am against the way you are doing it.” “Are you against Sunday school and youth groups?” “Yes and no.” I want to give you two examples in order to explain something to you. For some of you what I am going to say will not be strong enough, and for some of you I am going to be too strong. I just want to use these two things to point out what is wrong with us.
Sunday school. No matter what denomination you are a part of, if you are a part of some denomination that is kind of organized, I can assure you that your denomination spends multi-millions of dollars on Sunday school material, on conferences, on teaching teachers how to teach Sunday school, and on doing everything in the book to promote Sunday school. I know that for a fact.
Let me ask you. How much money does your denomination spend, and how many conferences and man-hours are invested, to teach fathers to teach their children? God doesn’t have a plan B; He only has a plan A. When you circumvent plan A, then you discover that plan B won’t work!
Now I am not saying that children can’t come together in groups and be catechized or taught anything, but if that ever even begins to supplant the ministry of the father in the home, you must blow it to pieces!
Do you see what I am saying? Look at just this one tiny example. There is everything available for Sunday school. But there is hardly a conference in this entire country to teach men how to teach their children. And most of the time in the Sunday school it is nothing more than entertainment, because the Sunday school teacher doesn’t have the authority to discipline your child. And even if they did, most wouldn’t do it because they don’t believe in it. That’s just one tiny example.
Now let’s look at youth groups. “Well, youth need to be together. You know, they just need to be together.” Really? What does the Scripture say? “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Pro 13:20)! Who ever told you youth ought to be together? I’ll tell you who told you: the 1960s psychologists who created the “generation gap.” No!—youth need to be with adults so that they stop acting like naïve fools, join adulthood, and put away foolishness—which leads to their destruction. Now I am not saying you can’t bring youth together, but I submit that if you do, you should have all their parents there.
And you say, “What about the lost youth that comes into our church?” Well, what are they seeing now? The lost youth come into your Christian youth in church and they see almost the same thing they see in their own homes: no parents, and kids teaching kids. Or one guy a little bit older with mousse in his hair teaching kids. But what would happen if lost youth came into your church and they saw the youth there in a loving, wonderful relationship with their parents? They would go, “Whoa! I have never seen anything like this before. His dad, look at him. He loves his son! And the son, he loves his dad! I mean look at the love. So is this Christianity?”
Our situation in the churches is very needy, but we tend to be blind to it. It is like the situation where a man comes up to me with a bleeding forehead, and he says, “Brother Paul, I have been everywhere. No one can diagnose my problem.” And I say, “Well, I am no doctor, but I’ll follow you around for 24 hours to see what we can see.” And I notice that every time the hour strikes, he hits himself in the head with a brick. If it strikes one he hits himself one time. If it strikes two, he hits himself twice. If it strikes twelve, he hits himself twelve times in the head with the brick. After observing this, cautiously and carefully, taking notes for 24 hours, I come up to him and I say, “You know, I am no doctor, but I think I have figured out your problem.”
It is that pathetic among us, Church! Why do our children do what they do? Why is everything so turned upside down? It is like one dear saint who wouldn’t let his teenage son go out with a young lady to be in some private place. Someone asked him one time, “Don’t you trust your son?” He said, “No, I don’t trust my son. Whatever made you think that? I don’t even trust his dad! I wouldn’t put his father alone with a woman that wasn’t his wife, and yet I have much more to lose from impropriety than my son. And I have much more control of my will than a teenager with raging hormones. So what would make you ever think I would trust my son?”
We violate biblical principle after biblical principle, and then we wonder why everything is a mess.