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Aug 16, 2024 · 49 minutes

Our Brother Israel Wayne, Director of Family Renewal, returns to “The Corner.”

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0:00 - 15:00. Revelation 3:14-20. Have we become the American Laodiceans? 15:00 - 31:00. Our Brother Israel Wayne, Director of Family Renewal, returns to “The Corner.” 31:00 - 48:00. Revival must start at home. To donate call : 877-616-2396

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Transcript

7,902 words, in two-minute parts. Made by machine, so a few words may be off.

0:0049:27

  1. 0:00

    Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite. Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media. And the philosophies of this world. God has called you and me to be his ambassador. Even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment. And now, the Hamilton Corner. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Hamilton Corner here on American Family Radio. I'm your host Abraham Hamilton, III. Yes, I am keenly aware that you two have some haters. We're trying to see if we can work something out. We will, but if we can't, then we just can't. But I'll try to keep you guys updated on that. Thank you for tuning in to the program. And so much is going on all over the country, well, in our country and all over the world is what I'm meant to say. Nevertheless, the Lord has given us His word to anchor us and to stabilize us and to give us clarity, insight, guidance and direction in the midst of these uncertain times. My name is Abraham Hamilton the third I am joined by the real J. Mac often imitate it never duplicated he's wearing a shirt of a team that seems to lose a lot of football games but I don't know you know people get get weird you know but you know maybe maybe maybe they come up you know maybe they come up I mean they ranked the highest this year I think they haven't been ranked you aware of that am I in my breaking news for you oh you aware yeah yeah I won't I won't say names but I'll just share this little tidbit. I mean, most of you guys know I'm from Louisiana, right? And I was in a meeting when I first visited AFA's headquarters and there was a conversation in the meeting and it was a passionate conversation going on about two collegiate universities that play football and they were remain nameless for the sake of this conversation. And it was such fervent and passionate discussion. I didn't I really couldn't understand it.

  2. 2:27

    I really couldn't understand it. Because I didn't spoke up and said, I don't know why you guys are so heated about this because both of these teams lose about four or five games every season. And man, you could have heard a pin drop in that. I mean, the meeting was quite raucous up until that moment. And then when I said what I just described to you that I said, it got very quiet. It got very quiet. Because I said to them, because where I'm from, seasons are evaluated as successes of failures based upon national championships. That's what I was used to. But I mean, if you guys wanted to debate who was better amongst the numerous repeated losers than have done way. That's foreign to me anyway. You ain't asking me for that Jeff, but your shirt prompted that. So I just, I still don't understand. But maybe, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to front, you know, one of those schools might have beaten my team one to twice in like 40 years, maybe. But generally speaking, we don't, we don't, we don't, if it's a season that is not a national title and at least the SEC Championship, that's an unsuccessful season from where I'm from. Okay. Just, I mean, just just letting that be known. I didn't understand. I don't really under, I don't really get loser speak. I'm just, that's what I'm trying to say. And I was being gentle before, but I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's what it is. An automated whole bunch of people, man. It's been down, it's been down lately, but we do have some rings that precedes the current downtime. All right. All right. All right. To the serious matters of the day, man, I was preparing for today's program, and I couldn't help, But be struck by the Lord's word and I really I really believe this diagnosis where we are currently in our country I mean, it's not lost on me that we're really at the scope where a decision is being made by the American people whether or not We will be full-on formerly transitioning into having socialist affirmatively and And outright socialist leadership or not, you know that that is where we are I I don't know if people understand this, but I hope you realize that a Democrat party presidential candidate will no longer be elected by any people is going to be selected from here on out.

  3. 5:06

    I don't know if people realize that, but it's pretty clear and what should also be clear is that the objective is not to have a leader, but to have a figure hit, because the leadership is actually gonna transpire behind the scenes. And then we have on the Republican side of the ledger, a part of that has consistently said it is conservative, but that the practical application of the concept of conservatism has been redefined in practice and is being redefined in practice. For the longest, the Republican Party has not been conservative as that word is traditionally understood. I don't think William F. Buckley would agree with it. I don't think Thomas Sowell would agree with it. I don't think Walter Williams would agree with it. I don't think Ronald Reagan would agree with it frankly. Maybe, maybe some aspects of it. But what I'm getting at, the Republican Party has been spending money pretty much similar to the Democrat Party. You know, the whole whole Tea Party movement, which was an acronym for taxed enough already, was actually snuffed out by Republicans. Karl Rove and his ilk. And so there are many who are listful. And the scripture reveals that the Lord deposited his church in the earth broadly and generally, and more particularly in the individual nations where he's deposited his bride to be salt and light, to be the pillar and ground of truth. But in too many instances, what the Lord established result in light has become lightly salted. And this text in Revelation chapter three is where we're gonna go today. Revelation chapter three, verses 14 through 20. The Greek word for revelation is apocalypsis, which means to reveal, to make apparent, to make evident. People talk about apocalyptic events.

  4. 7:08

    This is a part of apocalyptic literature. But in apocalypse, biblically, the word apocalypsis means to reveal, okay? This is the apostle John writing to the church. Well, he was confronting the seven churches, but what we're gonna turn to is his address to the church at Laodicea, and some things that should be known about the Laodicean church. It was about nine miles northwest from Colossae, so the Apostle Paul wrote his epistle to the church at Colossae. Laodicea was about nine miles northwest of Colossae. It was a church, not a church, it was a city. The city of Laodicea was known to be an economic superpower in about the 60s AD, an economic powerhouse, I should say, not super power, but an economic powerhouse. It was a self-sufficient commercial center, and it was the site of a thriving medical and textile industry in 68. I mentioned 68 because you can look this up. There was a massive earthquake that hit the city at the time, but they were so well off materially that they declined the invitation by the Roman government to aid in rebuilding the city, the Laodicean, say, now we have enough money. We got it. That's the kind of wealth that was abundant in the city of Laodicea. And so to the church in the city of Laodicea, this portion of the book of Revelation is addressed. Revelation chapter three, and it's Revelation, there's no S at the end of that. It's Revelation chapter three, verses 14 through 20. And this is what the word of God says. To the angel of the church in Laodicea, right. The amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God says this, I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

  5. 9:11

    Because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed and I salve to anoint your eyes so that you You may see those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me. Now a couple of things I wanna point out. Often people refer to the Laodicean Church as the lukewarm church, which is appropriate according to what the text says. But I want you to specifically note, the Lord gives us in His Word the reason, the reason why He viewed them as lukewarm. Well He assesses their condition and He's the hot nor cold. Just, but verse 17, He points out, why are they lukewarm? Because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing. The Lord diagnosis their condition, the Leodicean church's condition. It is because they have misconstrued their material wealth, their material resources as being sufficient.

  6. 11:17

    They have misconstrued their material abundance with being approved by God. And the fact that they were materially prosperous, they declared within themselves, I have need of nothing. In many ways, I feel like the Laodicean Church is emblematic and indicative of what has befallen the church in our country. I never want to paint with a broad brush. I know that the Lord maintains a remnant in our nation, but what I am saying is what is generally the reality. We have huge buildings. We have all kinds of programs. Our facilities, We have a children's ministry. It looks like you're going to an amusement park, because you got so many slides. We have so many resources. We have so many things going on, so many programs. Surely we are a thriving and strong and robust and vigorous church, right? Wrong. That's not how the Lord determines thriving in Him. Verse 17 goes on and says, goes on and say, because you say I'm rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and look at this and you don't even know. You don't know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. Guys, that should cause some sober reflection that you could have a people in particular here, a church in a city that sees itself as materially prosperous and that material wealth has caused them to be so ignorant that they don't even realize that God sees them as wretched.

  7. 13:24

    The term wretched communicates God's not that it's just bad, but it is rotten and rotting, and it emits a stench, a palpable stench that is evident to everyone whose all-factory systems are functioning. You say you are rich. You say you are wealthy. You say you have need of nothing, but God says you're wretched and miserable. Some translations there say pitiable and poor. Now they're saying they're wealthy, they're rich, but God is saying they're poor and blind and naked. The natural material conditions have so encroached upon their discerning capacities that they don't even realize how desperately disgusting to God they've become. But that's not the end of the story. Because of version 19, God says what He says, to those who my love, I reprove. I'm telling you this, I'm dyes those in your condition so that you would change. To those who my love, I reprove and discipline, therefore be zealous and repent. Guys, the order of the day in our nation, our most desperate and enduring need is repentance. And that repentance must begin in the house of God. because verse 20 concludes that the Christ was on the outside, knocking at the door, trying to get in. I'd like to take a minute and have a heart to heart with you. If you're able, place your hand over your heart. Can you feel it? My strong heartbeat reminds me that I'm alive. See, it's the same for an unborn baby. The heart begins to form at conception, and at just three weeks is already beating. At five weeks, a baby's heart can be heard on an ultrasound. That's where preborn steps in, rescuing 200 babies every day from abortion by simply providing a mother with a free ultrasound and allowing her to hear her child's heartbeat and see their perfectly formed body in the womb. By six weeks eyes are forming. By 10 weeks, a baby is able to suck his or her thumb. Preborn needs our help to save these precious babies. For just $28, you could be the difference between the life or death of a baby.

  8. 15:55

    All gifts are tax deductible. To donate, just dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby. Or donate securely at preborn.com. That's preborn.com. Shiting light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio. Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton. Third here, I am honored to have on the program with me a man of God, a brother in the faith who has inspired me, frankly. His ministry has been a blessing to my family. I am speaking of none other than our brother, Israel Wayne, who is an author and a conference speaker. He's also the director of Family Renewal, he and his wife Brooke live in southwest Michigan. They are homeschooling parents of 11 children. Israel has written, I believe, eight books. Several of them, my family has used, we just finished this past summer, his foundations in the faith book, which is a ground you in Christian doctrine, communicable with children, it's been a blessing to us. We're just starting now, his foundational truths book, which is a modern catechism. My family is using that. We've used several other of his books as resources for our family. And so I highly recommend that you go to his website, familyrenewal.org, familyrenewal.org, to resource your own family with these wonderful, wonderful tools that God has equipped us with through our brother here. Israel, thank you for joining me here on the program. Thank you, brother. It's always a blessing to be on your show. Oh, man. I am the one who's blessed and I believe that our audience will be blessed as well. what it is you have to have to say, you're teaching, you're writing truly, and I'm not trying to just blow you up. It's just the truth. You're a blessing to the body of Christ, and I'm grateful for you and your wife and your family and your ministry.

  9. 17:56

    That feeling is mutual. Appreciate you too, brother. Praise God. Now, I wanted to start the conversation. You and I both ministered at the Culture Proof Conference this past summer in Bartlett, Tennessee, and as I expected, I was so moved by what you presented. and one of the presentations you made included the notion of the necessity of revival in the home. Would you just share a little bit of what you were communicating there and what you see as necessary for us to experience revival that truly starts in the home? Well, in the book of Malachi, which is the last book of the Old Testament, the Lord gave a revelation to his prophet and he was talking about how the nation of Israel at that time was really in a bad place. They were in a bad spot financially, they were in a bad spot politically, socially. They were basically at risk of economic collapse as well as being taken over by enemies. And they were crying out to God and they were asking God why he wasn't intervening and why he wasn't helping them. And I'm gonna paraphrase just a little bit, but basically what he said was, He said, you flood my altars with your tears. And I hear you crying and I hear you praying for revival. He doesn't use that term, but basically that's what they're praying, for spiritual awakening in their land. But he says, I'm not listening to your prayers. I'm not hearing you. I am not going to answer your prayers. And that's a pretty sober thing. I need to have God tell a nation that. And then he outlines some reasons why. He says, and here's why. I have things against you. And one of the first things that he spoke to was the priests. And he talked about how they were not good shepherds and how they were not really looking after the interests of the flock and how their worship was tainted. And they were not bringing pure sacrifices before the Lord.

  10. 19:56

    And God was not accepting their sacrifices and their offerings because it was not pure worship and the leadership was compromised. And so, I know that the church today is not the nation of Israel and we want to be careful that we don't conflate that or give the impression that we misunderstand that truth. Those are two different entities. But I think the spiritual parallels transfer quite well. And so he's saying that we need to have faithfulness within the spiritual leadership in our country. And I think that would translate well to the shepherds in our churches today. There are a lot of statistics like George Barna's latest study that says only 37% of pastors have a nominal biblical worldview. Well, I think that puts us in the position of being spiritually compromised when it comes to the shepherds. And then another thing he says to them in chapter two is he talks about their marriages and he says, I hate divorce and yet he speaks to the men and he says, you know, you have been unfaithful to the wife of your covenant. And so, Barna again in his latest 2024 study, he says that 35% of American marriages end in divorce and the same is true of those who profess to be born again. And so, a professing believers versus non-professing believers, there's not a statistical difference in the divorce rate there. And so, he said, why did I make two people one? And he says, because I'm looking for a godly offspring. So God is looking for people who will raise up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord as Ephesians 6-4 talks about. Then he talks about their finances and he says, you have robbed me basically by putting your money into your kingdom and not into my kingdom. That you have been focused on spending your money the way you want to spend it rather than recognizing that what you have belongs to me.

  11. 22:02

    And so he rebukes them for their mismanagement of their finances. And then in chapter four, he talks about how he wants to turn the hearts of fathers to children and the hearts of children to the fathers. And he says, lest I strike the earth with a curse, or I think one translation says, unless I strike the earth with a decree of utter desolation. And so he gives this really heavy admonition that if this doesn't happen, if fathers don't turn their hearts to their children and children are the fathers, there's not hope for your country. And so I think what we're seeing is basically kind of a biblical outline in the book of Malachi that transfers very well to our day. Why are we not seeing spiritual awakening in our country? we have compromised shepherds, we have Christian marriages that are not what they should be and that are falling apart with covenant breaking. We have just as much economic debt within the evangelical Christian community as we have within the secular community. I think it's about $6,000 per adult in the United States and consumer credit card debt right now. And Christians really are no different than non-Christians in these statistics. And then with our children, US Department of Labor Statistics in 2022 said that the average mom spends only one hour a day with her children and the average father is only 29 minutes. And yet these young people are spending seven and a half hours a day in school, seven and a half hours a day in social media and screen time after school, video games, television, all of that. And so 15 hours a day, they're getting indoctrinated into anti-Christian ideology, and then mom gets an hour, dad gets an hour. And we're thinking that somehow this is all gonna pan out. It's all gonna work, and we're gonna have a successful transfer of the Christian faith.

  12. 24:05

    And that's not working. And so I think if we were to listen to the words Malachi today, I think he would say, you need to fix your, your churches. And that happens in many ways from a leadership level. But churches are made up of individuals and families, right? And so we're not worshiping well at church. It's because we're not worshiping well at home. And if we don't have revival in our church, because we don't have revival in our home and in our heart. And so it starts with us as parents, it starts with us as married couples, it starts with us as families, because we make up churches, churches impact our community. So we'll never see spiritual awakening until we have revival in the church, and we won't see revival in the church until we see revival in the home. Mm, man. This is why I love you, brother. I mean, cause you lay it out succinctly, coherently, but profoundly. And it's not lost on me that we are in the middle of a quite contentious election season, and there are lots of people that want to look to the government for solutions and others who want to really externalize the cause of all of the things that maybe view these problems in our society. But based on what you're saying, that we're looking in the wrong direction before we try to address things externally. And I know you're not saying to ignore things that are external, but the real core, the real root of the things that are problematic in our society, they started our homes. Am I misrepresenting your position? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And to talk about your messages from the Culture Proof Conference, you talked about Babylon and about the nation of Israel. And I think it was easy for the nation of Israel to just blame their bad kings and to blame the Assyrians and to blame the Babylonians and these groups that would come in and oppress them and I think they felt like this is not the government that we deserve. Yeah, but it kind of was.

  13. 26:11

    And in our country, we don't live under a monarchy or even a totalitarian despotism where no nation is invaded, taken over our country and we're under some kind of a foreign rule. That's not our scenario. We really do in many ways get the government that that we deserve as a people in our country. And so I think the thing is rather than us railing at the governmental leadership and saying, oh, we don't deserve this, we don't deserve this. I think we should look at our hearts and say, yeah, maybe we do. Maybe this is exactly the leadership that we deserve in our country, because why? Because we forsaken God. It's not that God has forsaken us. It's not that God has walked away from us. we have been faithless. And so God allows consequences to play out. And as people have rejected God, suppressed the knowledge of God, ignored God, they have no right to then turn around and say, oh, but we want all the blessings. That's not kind of how covenant relationship with God works. No, you're absolutely right. Before you came on, I started the program today in Revelation 3, verses 14 through 20, discussing the Laodicean Church. And it's amazing the contrast that Laodiceans viewed themselves as materially wealthy. And even as it says in verse 17, it says, because I am rich, because I am wealthy, and have need of nothing. Yet the Lord in response says, but you don't know that you are wretched and miserable and and poor and blind and naked. And then when you get down to verse 19, the Lord has said to them, those whom I love are reproven discipline, therefore be zealous and repent. The Lord confronts us in his love in these ways so that we would repent. But what would you say to someone who would say, all right, here's what you're saying, but what you're presenting is overly simplistic.

  14. 28:13

    That is a reductionist view of the multifaceted, multi-layered problems we have in our nation. How would you respond to them? I think you nailed it with the word repent. There is a path out of this. There really is. God is merciful, he is kind, he is compassionate, he is long-suffering. God's heart is that he wants to relent. His heart is that he wants to bless, not curse. That's his heart, he says it over and over in the scripture. And the path that he gives to us is one of humility, contrition and repentance. But there's a practical aspect to that. And I think that's where we sometimes, as Christians, aren't willing to actually walk out repentance. You know, it's hard for us because we choke on the words of repentance, like, you know, get stuck in the throat and it doesn't want to come out like, okay, I was wrong. We don't want to invest that. But if we do confess it, the next question is, are we willing to actually walk out the steps of repentance? In other words, do something different than what you've done previously. because that's a huge part of repentance. There's not another way out of this. That's the path that is the path out of this, is to turn from the things that we've been doing that don't work and that are offensive to God and do the things that align with obedience. Man. In the scripture that I read in from Revelation, the Lord was confronting them and said, now you don't know that you need this. Do you think there's a significant portion of the body of Christ in our country that doesn't know that it's unaware, just how far, generally speaking, of course there's a remnant. I don't want to overly paint with a broad brush, but do you think that there's a significant portion of the body of Christ in our country that is unaware how we have frankly rebelled against God?

  15. 30:14

    I think that it's completely true of the evangelical church in America. The reason for that is there are very few shepherds who are willing to call the church to repentance. I know you're one who does, and I'm grateful for that. That's one of the reasons why I love you so much. But there has been a willingness on the part of shepherds to simply soothe the people and to speak complacent words to them and to lull them into a false sense of security. though God is okay with all of this. And the fact is we have repeatedly as a nation offended a holy God repeatedly over and over. And when you watch history, biblical history predominantly, God lets that go for a long, long time, far longer than what I would if I was God. But he's He's got a compassionate and merciful, you know, defining nature. And so he allows that to play out, but he does not allow that to go on forever. And there ultimately is a judgment. And so, you know, we don't want to be fear mongering here. We don't want to people to be in a state of panic. You know, God is always going to have a remnant. He's always going to have people who are faithful to him. And he loves those people. dearly. They are his children. And just as we as parents love our children and those children are, you know, are dear to us. That's true of the heart of the father. But he has to judge these nations, right, who have mocked him repeatedly. And I think that we're looking at a couple of generations now in particular, really probably from the middle 1960s, where our nation has just been doing everything that we can collectively to thumb our nose at God. And God is a holy God, he will not be mocked. And so if we want to see that change in the nation, the way to do that is not to curse the political leaders. Although I think we should vote the bad ones out. I want to be clear about that. But what we have to do is we have to look in our own hearts and say in what way are we different from the world?

  16. 32:41

    And what way has the gospel changed our hearts, our homes, our marriages, our finances, our relationships, our businesses, the way that we relate to, the way that we interact with those in our community? And what way has the gospel changed us? And if it is not notable, if it is not tangible, observable, we need to do some heart-seeking. Do you, Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 through 8 direct us to display scripture in our homes and other places? It says you should decorate with the Word of God and that you are to fill your hearts and minds with these words. There's no greater cause than for those of us who know Christ to share Him and God's Word. Get the full article, God's Word on Display by Joseph Parker on thestand.net and join the movement to put God's word on display at 10laws.us. The Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Minute Common Terrets are available at EFR.net back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio. Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner. My guest is Israel Wayne, Director of Family Renewal. You see why I love having this brother on the program. Before we get too far afield, I want to remind you who are listening to me that Israel is available to minister at your local churches, at your events. He is routinely speaking at various homeschool conferences all around the country, but he speaks to events beyond the homeschool scope. He really can address anything I love. He often describes that God's word applies to all areas of life. There is not one facet of our existence which does not fall under the direct claim of lordship by Jesus Christ. This includes how we spend our money, when entertainment we consume, how we educate our children, how we use our time, all of life must be understood from within a Biblical worldview.

  17. 34:44

    And I love that Israel. How can people connect with you not only for your resources and your books, but how can they connect with you to invite you to speak at their events? This place to contact me for speaking is my name Israel Wayne dot com Israel Wayne dot com. And then our ministry site is familyrenewal.org. Familyrenewal.org. We have a lot of great resources for Christian families there. So get over there. And then if you wanna know when we're speaking in your area, there's an email sign up right on our website. We'd love to keep in touch with you and let you know when we're gonna be in your area doing a seminar or conference. Man, thank you for sharing that. Now, before we went to the break, you were explaining just what I was reading from your website. God's Word Applause to all areas of life. And you mentioned that John, the Apostle John has a lot to say about this in 1 John, would you just pick up there and share with our audience what you were indicating when you said John has a lot to say about it? Yeah, so in 1 John chapter two, beginning in verse 15, John says, do not love the world or anything that is in the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. And so we are sometimes very deceived, right? Because we believe that we can love the world and things that are in the world, and that it doesn't really reflect our heart. And I love the late Larry Burkett, he's not around anymore, but he taught a lot on biblical financial stewardship. And he used to say that I can tell what you love, I can tell what you value, I can tell what you worship by looking at two things, by looking at your bank account and your calendar, because that's how you spend your life. You spend your life through your time and your resources. And so we often say that our first priority is the kingdom of God and our second priority is our family, but quite often that's not how we're spending our time and it's not how we're spending our resources. The average Christian is only giving like 2.6% of their income to the work of the kingdom, 2.6%.

  18. 36:50

    That's average. And then the average parent, as I said, is spending an hour a day or 29 minutes a day with their children. And so we say our families are most important priority and the work of the kingdom is, but our money doesn't reflect that and our time doesn't reflect that. So we have to be honest with ourselves and stop lying to ourselves and saying that we really love God and we love our family above all things. For the most part, we really love ourselves. The average Christian parent spends four hours every night watching TV or Netflix. Four hours every night. So it's not that they don't have time. If you ask the average Christian parent, why don't you spend more time with your child? They'll say, well, I don't have time. It's not that they don't have time. It's that they love their own personal effluents and comfort and entertainment more than they are committed to effectively discipling their children. And it shows up on the stat sheet. And so we just don't put in the effort. And so we don't see the results that we need to. Boy, sobering sobering sobering. I'm often asked Abe, how have we gotten into where we are as a nation currently? And my response is very simply, we've decided what I weigh into it. And because discipleship is a constant, you know, it is going to take place to question is will people be discipled in the way of Christ? And I mentioned that because it's connected to the next question I want to ask you, how has and we've already been discussing it but I wanted to invite you to put a fine point on it. How has what you just described? I really are self-absorbed, self-focused lives contributed to where we are as a society about us refusing to do what God really has commanded Christian parents to do in our homes. I have a strange hobby where I like to google search and look up video interviews of sports coaches who lost a game. It's kind of a weird hobby like most people don't have a hobby.

  19. 38:55

    But they're all the same. Like there's only one kind of losing coach exit interview. And that's when they asked the coach, hey, you guys got killed out there tonight. What happened? Every coach says the same thing. We just didn't execute the fundamentals. We did not put into play the things we talked about in practice. I think that's where we're at within the church. I think that we have not executed the fundamentals. It's not some lofty point of theology out there in academia that we don't know about that's kept us from being ineffective as believers, we don't do the basics. We're not in the word, we're not in prayer, we don't disciple our children, we don't nurture our marriages, we don't give money to God's kingdom as we should, we are self-absorbed and self-obsessed. And it shows up on the stat sheet. And so we need to execute the fundamentals. We just need to do the things that we've been told to do in the book. Mm. Man, there are lots of people who would say, but that's not me. I'm not doing it. That's not me. I've heard the conversations, and I know you've heard the conversations because I've read it in your book, Education Does God Have an Opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was real, but it doesn't take all of that. I can send my children to be discipled by the world and have their minds shaped by the world. And they'll still be good Christians, and they actually will be the ones that'll turn their schools around. Well statistically what we see is we see that of young people who go through K-12 public school and then four years of secular college, you end up with 6% that have a biblical worldview at the end of that. So we have a 94% failure rate following that path. So do some students get through? Yeah, a few, 6%. but the rest do not possess even a nominal biblical worldview after all of that. So I think we just need to become realistic and stop assuming that we can just ignore biblical principles and hand our children over to our ideological enemies and expect that to work out well.

  20. 41:07

    So true, it's so true. And we have this propensity to treat the exception as if it is the rule. That's one of the things that I've encountered. It is a logical fallacy, but it is we highlight an exception as if it is the rule, because when we point to the exception, as you mentioned, one of the 6%, they're 94% that have not come out unscathed, 94%. And yet we continue to kind of delude ourselves with this notion. I mean, I know that the Apostle Paul warned us against plausible argument that would result in the delusion. And if that delusion goes unchecked, this is some collosion to that the losing goes unchecked. It can metastasize into full-blown captivity. And what I hear you explaining seems to me pretty plainly, it's evidence of the type of captivity that is prevalent, although there are no physical bars that are incarcerating anybody. Yeah, it's absolutely true. And we're seeing a statistic of 70% of all church youth who walk away from the Christian faith before high school graduation and say, I'm never coming back. That's just of those who are in high school, 70% fallout of those raised in church, raised in Christian homes. And those who have followed me at all, who know anything about me, know that this is a drum that I beat relentlessly. But that idea that I'm going to send my child to church for an hour a week, and they're going to fix my kid, not a biblical concept. And it's not working. We as Christian parents have a biblical mandate responsibility to disciple our own children. It's great when the church comes along and helps. That's fine. That's all good. That's great. It's not their job to raise our kids. It's not their job to disciple our children. It's our job. We have to stop assuming that somebody else is gonna do it for us. I love how you said it's not their job to raise our kids. And then you said it's not their job to disciple our kids. One of the fundamental thing disconnects is that, biblically speaking, disciple our kids is intrinsic to raising them.

  21. 43:08

    I think in many parents' minds, they view the notion of discipling their children as being external and separate and apart from raising them. Is that, do you think I'm a far off on that assessment, is that something you've encountered? Yeah, I think especially for men, right? Because men believe that their responsibility to their family is to go to work and bring home a paycheck. And they believe if they do that, they've fulfilled their biblical responsibility. And yet Ephesians 6, 4, and so many other passages talk about fathers, it's your responsibility to trade them in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. And it's specifically says fathers in that verse. And so I think the church has really reinforced that false narrative, that as long as fathers are financial providers, that's the only provision that is necessary when the spiritual and emotional nourishment of our families and provision for our families is equally important. And so the instruction, the teaching, the discipline, all of that is predominantly biblically speaking, the responsibility of the Father. And our wives of course come alongside and there are helpers, right? And they come along and assist and help in that. But I think all of that nurturing and caring comes intrinsic to mothers. You don't have to tell them to nurture their children. They get that. They just do it instinctively. It's God given. I think men have to be told. And I think that's why we see twice as often in the Bible God telling men to teach their children. and we see him telling mothers too. He tells mothers to teach your children and instruct your children, but more than twice as often he tells men to do it. And I think it's because men he told. And so we as the church, we have a responsibility to tell fathers what the book says. And unfortunately, I don't hear that in many churches. And I get around a lot, I speak in a lot of churches and I don't hear a lot of churches that are upholding that to men and saying, men, it's really your responsibility to disciple your children with the health and assistance of your wife.

  22. 45:11

    Hmm. I can vouch for the fact that he does get around a lot. Israel gets around a lot. So when he says that, he's the truth. And I mean, this comes back to what we began the conversation because the thing that is so puzzling to me, puzzling to me is how we've gotten so far away so far away from what God has said all the while, professing to be the people of God. I mean, we have frequent church attendance and we have all of these things that are happening, but we've gotten so far away from what the word of God says. And we're suffering those consequences. Help us, Andrew. Well, part of it is we don't know what it says, right? You can't obey something if you don't know what the command is. And so what's ironic is that I saw a study, and I think it was American Bible Society, I could be wrong. It was one of those groups that does a lot on biblical literacy. And they stated that Gen Z, which is this young generation, 400 around 2000, you know, give or take a few years. But this young generation coming up is simultaneously the most opinionated of any previous American generation about the Bible. They have more strong opinions about the Bible, stronger beliefs about the Bible than any other generation before them. And yet at the same time, they know less of what the Bible says than any generation before them. So in other words, they think they know. They think they know what the Bible says and they're dogmatic about what they think the Bible says, but they don't actually know. And so that's a significant issue, I think, that especially people who have a bit of church, they assume that they know the Bible pretty well.

  23. 47:13

    And yet I would suggest that unless you're reading the Bible, as significant, I mean, we should read the Bible daily. I believe all of us as Christians should read the Bible daily. But at least regularly, we should be reading the Bible for ourselves. And if we're not doing that, we actually probably don't really know the Bible. and you go, well, I go to church once or twice a week. Yeah, you probably don't actually really know the Bible if you're not reading it for yourself on it, if not a daily basis, a very regular basis. And so I think that's a huge issue that we can't obey the teaching of scripture when we don't know what it says, and we don't know what it says, because we don't read it. And you've already mentioned this that as bleak as things are, frankly, and there's no use lying about the reality. There's no way to correct anything if we don't diagnose a problem properly. But you mentioned the way, it doesn't have to be this way continually. There's a way out, but the way out is gonna take a full throttle investment and that is an investment in repentance. Just if you would, just 30 seconds, would you just underscore the necessity of repentance in the hour that we're in? I think we can actually see revival in our own lives, in our own homes. I'm experiencing the kind of family I didn't grow up in. I have the kind of marriage that I didn't get to see my parents have. My parents divorced. I had an abusive stepfather. My children are not being raised that way. They're being raised in a wonderful, loving home. And I think we really can see the effects of revival in one generation, in our family and our lives. If we humble ourselves and cry out to God and say, help. I can't do this on my own. I'm messing things up. Help. God answers those kinds of prayers. Amen. Amen. Thank you brother. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Israel Wayne calm bring him to your church Bring him to your your events family renewal org get the resources that you need so we can walk out this repentance The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio

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