[Bill Cowan] God says that children are a great blessing and that we should appreciate our blessing. Notice Psalm 127:3-5. Psalm 127:3 said, "Behold, children are a heritage from God. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; and they shall not be ashamed, but shall speak with their enemies in the gates.” And lo, children are a heritage from God. That word actually means an inheritance, a portion, and an heirloom. Your children are like an heirloom. As Alan just said, that they're the four generations now in God's Church and that is fantastic. I think we'd be shocked how many families God has actually worked through that many don't realize that they are kin to someone else in God's Church and yet maybe through the years they find out that they are, but children are a gift. They are a very precious gift from God. They are a blessing. As a matter of fact, that is the title of my sermon today, "Children Are a Blessing from God."

It says, "In the fruit of the womb, children are His reward," that children are the reward that God gives to us. And “like arrows in the hand of a warrior,” you know a warrior that's going out into battle if he doesn't have some type of weapon, well, he undoubtedly, unless God just protected him for some reason, but he would be slaughtered. But he said that having children then, it's “like having arrows in the quiver.” And he said “Blessed and happy is the one who has his quiver full of them,” but they are a blessing. Children are a blessing and should be a blessing. Do you realize that the Bible uses the term children 1,803 times? He talks about little children, children of light, children of God. The word or term child is used 201 times. Actually, 3 of the cardinal Ten Commandments that God gave to sanctify the family, to safeguard the family, and to protect the family.

He said, “Honor your father and your mother.” He said, “Do not commit adultery and do not covet your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's house.” So these three commandments were given to sanctify and protect the family. It's safe to say that God loves children. And of course, Jesus Christ demonstrated that, as we heard in the sermonette by taking the children up in His arms and holding them and laying His hands on them and blessed them. But the disciples said, "Oh, the Master doesn't have time for that. Get these kids out of here. They're an irritant. They're just bothering us." And Christ said, "No. Unless you have the attitude of a little child, you're not even going to be in God's kingdom." And He said, "Let them come unto Me because children are a blessing."

How many parents enjoy just watching their children sleep? And of course we as grandparents, I mean, we go absolutely insane. “Oh, look.” “Oh, isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever seen?” “Oh, look at that. Look at his nose wrinkle!” You know and we just makeover everything. But that's one of the opportunities of being a grandparent. That's fantastic. But children do, they just kind of brighten up the space. I have seen men that are some of the grumpiest, scruffiest, toughest looking people that I've ever seen. I mean, you would think literally if their face… if they could ever get a smile on their face, it's bound to crack because it looks like it's been umpteen years since they had smiled. And you let a little child come in the room and he'll play with a ball or play with the puppy or something and you just see this guy light up as he looks at him, just smiles and talks to him, “Goo, goo, goo,” you know.

The children have a way of bringing blessings to others and, of course, they are to be a blessing. It's amazing what children can do and a blessing that they are for us. Many of us now have grown children and we have grandchildren or great-grandchildren and I'm going to talk about our responsibilities with those today as well. But they truly are a blessing from God. And we as parents need to realize what a responsibility we have to treat them and to handle them as a blessing. Also, you children, you need to realize that you need to maintain that position of being a blessing because if you're not a blessing, then something is wrong.

I'd like to share some quotes with you today. Thanks to Mr. Gary Antion and his research. And I want to cover primarily five points today on how to treat our blessings, how to treat our children as blessings. You know, the children are a gift from God as we read and who's going to refuse a gift from the Creator of the universe? God says that He gives us that they are a replica of ourselves, which it's good and it's bad. If we're honest with ourself, I think most of the time we become frustrated with our children, it's because we see ourselves and we realize that they are turning out just like us and it hurts us and makes us mad. But they are, they're a replica of you. If you want to understand yourself, look at your children. Look how they act. Look how they react. Look how they act in a crisis and you will see yourself. They look at you in the family unit kind of like looking at a movie. Every day they wake up and they see this movie. Here's mom and dad, they react in a certain way. If there's tension, if there's bitterness or if there's joy and happiness and love, they sense all of that and they will act according to that.

Got a spider up here. It's all right. He doesn't eat much. But the movie they watch is about dad. The movie they watch is about mom and it's about how mom and dad interact and react with each other and it's about the children and how mom and dad interact and react with them. Their entire idea and concept of family is based on and formed at home. What they see with mom and dad and their siblings, that is their concept of what a home is, what it should be and how it operates. They really can't help it because that's what they're brought up in.

Here's a comment from Woodrow Wilson when he was the chancellor at Princeton and what he said about that, he said, "They are a replica. Children are a joy. Children are a blessing of joy. Children don't hold grudges." I remember our daughters would come home and say, "I hate that girl so-and-so." Let's say Patricia, or whatever her name was. And you'd say, "Well, why do you hate Patricia?" "Well, she did this to me." "Well, okay, you should get over that." And then the next day you ask how they were, "Oh, I had a really nice day today." "Oh, what did you do? Who did you play with?" "Oh, Patricia." "Well, I thought you weren't playing with Patricia. You told me yesterday that you hated her." "Oh, but I don't anymore." And that's the way children are. Children have a wonderful way of working together and working things out through a sense of joy and vim and vigor for life. They don't hold, generally, grudges, hopefully not anyway. And, of course, they bring love to people. They bring… they climb up on your lap and they hug you around the neck and they tell you they love you and how they appreciate you and so forth, and it just literally warms you all over.

Kids are not ashamed. I remember when Rod and Ron were little, and Michelle, all three of them would get up in my lap and they just hug, hug, hug, and kiss and hug and, you know, they couldn't seem to get enough of it, especially the boys. They were the most loving children I have ever seen, but they would just get up and they didn't care who was there. They just love you and they'd tell you they loved you and they just hugged on you and so forth. They just wanted to touch you all the time. They didn't care if it was hanging on your leg or on your arm or in your lap or what, but they just really were very, very loving. They weren't ashamed of that. They were filled with love and thereby helped me to love and to understand what true love is.

Here's a comment as an introduction that I want to read to five points in a moment, “Five Ways to Treat our Blessings." This is an original paper written by a young lady in 1985 at the summer camp at Orr, Minnesota. The assignment was write something that if you were a ruler of the world, what changes would you make? This young lady wrote an outstanding article and I want to read it to you because it does have to do with family and what a young girl said about family, and she was about 14 possibly 15 at the time, and what she thought. She said, "As an appointed ruler of the world, I would like to make a first change in the family relationship. I think if the bond between family members was a stronger, more loving one, some of the most major problems teens have today would be solved. Problems such as drugs, alcohol, smoking, premarital sex would gradually decrease and teens would be able to turn to mom and dad rather than speed, beer, marijuana, and their 'chick.'"

“The reason I think this would work is because the family members could learn to grow closer and express more love toward each other. They could grow to trust each other. Once they began trusting each other, husbands and wives would stay together and grow in love. Teens would ask for advice and go to their parents for help rather than to the drug dealers. Most teenagers feel home is like a prison cell and their parents are the guards, so they look for a way of escape. They have problems, but maybe if the family bond was stronger, the problems could be solved before they get started. From experience, I know parents have good advice and by following it all of us could save ourselves a ton of problems." Well, how well-spoken from a 14 or 15-year-old girl. And she realized the value of having a strong family unit.

Number one of the five points I want to give today on how to treat our blessings, how to treat our children and our grandchildren, number one is understanding. You see, when you enter the world of a child, you can't enter it as an adult in the sense of adult thinking. Look at 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, 1 Corinthians 9:19, the apostle Paul's approach was that we should become all things to others. And he said, 1 Corinthians 9:19, "For though I am free from all men…" In other words, he wasn't a bondservant, he wasn't in slavery. He did not have to do this, but he did it of his own freewill. "Though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant or a slave to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews; and to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law, to those who were without the law; as without the law (and of course, not being without the law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you."

So his wish, his purpose was trying to reach other people. His perspective was getting on their level, get where they are coming from. And too many parents expect their children to have adult reactions and adult responses and adult thoughts. We expect them to have adult actions when they're really just children. And you cannot expect that out of them. It's very, very important to treat your blessings in this sense of understanding and giving them understanding. Where are they in a particular stage? Boys like strength. Boys like cars, they like power, they like fast things. Girls like dolls, they like beauty. Those are, of course, generalizations, but that's usually the case.

In a moment, I'm going to share something about understanding here because if you understand your children, then they're going to come to you for advice. But if children do not have understanding in the family, then where is it going to be found? The family is the safest place for children, or it should be, it must be. And so if they cannot find understanding there, then they won't be able to find it. They'll go to drug dealers or they'll go to sex or whatever they can, alcohol, to try and find it, but it's not there.

And 1 Corinthians 13:11 in the "love chapter," the apostle Paul in this chapter brings out a very interesting point about children. 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, yeah, I put away childish things." But it's important that we deal with children on their particular level, on where they are. Not that we become a child, but we understand the child and we deal with them on that level. It's important to recognize where they are as young people and then we try to communicate with them on that particular level in their thought, in their understanding. And again, I don't mean that you want to become childish or silly or something like that, but that you want to be able to reach them, that you want to be able to touch them and understand that at certain ages they're going to have certain needs more than other and at other times then those needs will change.

From a book entitled Family Understanding… I mean, pardon me, Friendly Understanding, I won't read all of this quote, but just at the end here, he said, "Listen to this one. There are a few gifts that one person can give to another as rich as friendly understanding." And there again, if we don't get understanding at home where then can we get it? It's important to understand the child where they are joining with them, reaching them. Here's another quote. This one says, "As a boy, he worked long hours in a factory in Naples. He yearned to be a singer. When 10 years old, he took his first lesson in voice. ‘You cannot sing. You haven't any voice at all. Your voice sounds like the wind and the shutters,’ said his teacher. The boy's mother, however, had visions of greatness for her son. She believed that he had what it took to be a talent in singing. She was extremely poor, putting her arm around her son, she encouraged him and said, 'My boy, I'm going to make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.’ Her confidence in him, her understanding of him, where he was as a child at that time and constant encouragement paid off. The boy became one of the world's greatest singers, Enrico Caruso.” And most of you younger people who've never heard of him, but he truly, as far as our modern times from the 1800s until now was one of the greatest voices that has ever lived. He was a tenor, operatic tenor, and arguably was the best voice that has lived in our "lifetime."

The second point is communication. When we understand, then we communicate. Communication, by the way, is a two-way street. It's not just you talking to them, but it's a give and take. What worked with a 5-year-old in communicating with them will not work with a 15-year-old. It just doesn't work that way. Do you realize that fewer than 30 minutes a day are spent with children by the mothers? I had mentioned before, I saw a study of newborns where they put cameras in the house and they photographed the fathers and the mothers. But in this particular case, it was for the fathers that they spent 38 seconds a day with their newborn.

Now, when they were then questioned about it after the survey was done and they gathered all the material, of course, dad said, "Oh, I spend at least five or six hours a day just holding my little newborn." Thirty-eight seconds a day. And their mouth just… they saw the films and their mouth just dropped open. They couldn't believe it. I thought I spent all kinds of time with them. The average mother spends 30 minutes a day, not talking about it in the vicinity of the child or in the same house, but actually dealing with the child. The average dad, 15 minutes a day with their children. And when you work with children, you have to give them time. Time is one of the most precious things to a child. And they have to know that you want to be with them, that you want to know them, that you want to understand them. They have to know that you love them.

How many times have we heard the statement, children should be seen and not heard? That's absolutely horrible. That is, that's a horrible, horrible statement to think that a child would have to be quiet all of the time. Teaching children to be respectful does not mean that they have to just keep their mouth shut and never talk. How are they going to learn? And how many times are children left out of conversations because they're told to be quiet and, "Don't bother me, I'm busy," or, "I'm talking to so and so here?" And that's one of the things that has concerned me in our congregation is we don't have a whole lot of interaction that I have seen between the members and some of our young children, teenagers and young adults and so forth because we need to have a constant interaction with them because you wonder when they get 18 years of age that they trip over the rug trying to run out the door so fast to get away because they don't feel like part of the family.

They don't feel like we've got a cohesive family because nobody ever talks to them. You see the kid and he's standing over here in the corner with his hands in his pocket like, "Well, what am I going to do? And, boy, I sure wish mom would hurry up and we can get out of here," because nobody has any time for them. We should take time with our children, not just our children, I'm talking about our church children. We should spend time with them and encourage them. And then depending again on their age, get down on the level as much as we can with them. And you'd be surprised when they feel a part of the family when they turn 18 or 21 or 25, they're going to want to stick with the family because it's going to mean a lot to them. And they're not going to try running out the door like a track star the first chance they get.

But we do, we need to spend time with our own children and, of course, with our church children as well. We need to teach children to be respectful. We need to teach them principles of life. And Deuteronomy 4:9, Deuteronomy 4:9, it says, "Only take heed” because we have a responsibility to communicate, to teach, and to reach out to share with them. “Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget what your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all of the days of your life. But teach them to your sons and to your sons' sons… or to your grandchildren."

We do have a responsibility, a responsibility to communicate, a responsibility to reach out to their minds and their hearts of a young person, and to be able to teach them the principles of life that we have learned many times the hard way. In Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Deuteronomy 6:6, "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.” That we should be talking about God's way of life.

Talking about sound principles and lessons that we have learned. That doesn't just mean reading the Bible to them. One lady made the statement, "Oh, you know, when I was a child, my mom read the Bible to me every day." And when I asked, "Well, how did she go about it?" "Oh, she would just pick out so many chapters and just read that to me." That's not really the way to teach children. That's fine to read them the Bible, but there should be instruction and teaching with it. All that does., many times, it just turns into sheer boredom. “He begat, they begat, begat so and so and such and such, and then they begat so and so,” and after 30 minutes of that, you feel like you could run out in the field screaming. It's just that does not appeal to a little one, teenagers or whatever. But we do need to teach them, but that's not a good way to teach them. Don't just set them down and start reading and tongue-lash them with scriptures. It's better to teach them from the Scriptures and parents have a responsibility to teach their children principles, principles of life, principles that they have learned.

Grandparents have a responsibility to teach their grandchildren principles of life and it's important that we teach and do it properly. From an article entitled "A Son Gets an Hour a Day," says a young successful attorney, said, "The greatest gift that I have ever received was one I got one Christmas when my dad gave me a small box. Inside it was a note saying, 'Son, this year I will give you 365 hours, an hour every day after dinner, it's yours. We'll talk about what you want to talk about. We'll go where you want to go. We'll play what you want to play, it will be your hour.' My dad not only kept his promise," he said, "but every year, he renewed it and it is by far the greatest gift that I have ever had in my life and I am a result of his time."

How many of us are too busy to spend with our children, to spend with our mates, to spend with our family? I hope none of us are, but I know Satan and his tactics and he has deliberately worked out society to where everybody is so busy we don't have time one for another. It's important that we teach our children, that we reach our children and reach them on their level and their understanding. It's important that we spend time with them because if we don't, then they're going to have a warped view of God because their view of God is literally you. You kind of sit in the seat of God as far as they are concerned when they're little and you have to provide for them, you have to love them just as God would provide and love them and teach them and care for them.

Another quote comes from Charlie Shed's book, Smart Dads that I Have Known. And from the section entitled "Time Together Alone," said, "A dad in Des Moines, Iowa did an interesting thing last fall. He knocked on his daughter's door one night right after she had gone to bed. Then at her invitation, he went in, he sat down and he made this little speech, 'Vicky, I want to apologize. I want you to know that I am sorry for a silly thing that I have done. You are a senior in high school now and all of these years, I've been saying that someday I'll take the time for us to get acquainted. So here we are, nine months left in our home, then you'll be going off to college and after that probably getting married and no telling where you will live and how far we will be from one another.

So now I want to ask you to do me a favor. Once every week in this senior year, I'd like to take you out alone for a meal when we have some time to talk together. I know you're busy, lots of evenings and I cannot get away for lunch, but maybe we could get up early once a week and go out for breakfast just the two of us, you and me. That's my invitation. Take some time to think it over and let me know how you feel.' So she took some time, like 30 seconds, “then she threw her arms around him and from there he said, 'It's been so fine. What I found out is that this is one great kid and it really feels good to know maybe her mother and I did not do so bad after all.’" But he was willing to give her time, spending time with her time. In order to be able to communicate, you have to have time.

And in that, it means that you correct as well. So many parents anymore do not believe in correction and that's an absolute shame. You should correct, but it should be done in love. Over in Proverbs 13:24, we read from the Living Translation, it says, "Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. And those who love their children care enough to discipline them." The number one reason given by teenagers as to why they run away from home was, oddly enough, a lack of correction. They universally said, "My parents don't love me enough. They don't care enough. I can do anything that I want and they don't even raise an eyebrow. My parents do not love me." There has to be discipline. So it does take correction. But I've seen people and they'll say, "Now, Johnny, don't you touch that glass of water. Johnny, if you touch, if you touch that again, I'm going to spank you." And the child learns on the 37th threat, well, he better leave it alone at that point because mom was so mad now, she is going to spank him. A child can learn to obey the first time. There's peace, there's happiness. They're not upset. You're not upset. Nobody's screaming, nobody's mad. The water isn't spilled. The first time. You work with them, you teach them, you're patient with them. But it does take correction and it takes also appreciation.

I've heard so many people feel like that they are not appreciated in what they do. Some parents have even gone so far as to say, "I'll tell you when you do wrong, but when you do, right, well that's expected of you and I don't have to tell you." But it's important to reinforce our children and to look at them and to tell them what a good job they have done. If you say, "Go wash the car," and they forget to wash the windshield, is that all you focus on and you just go out there in a tirade, "Well, you forgot the windshield, can't you see that? It's right here in front of you, how did you miss it?" and so forth instead of praising them for washing the car like you asked them to do, and then you might pick up the brush and you might say, "I'm going to get this a little bit more here, but you did a great job down here. Wow, look at this car shine." But instead, we tend to focus on the negative and we should not do so with our children but talk about the good effort that they put into it.

In Proverbs 3:27, Proverbs 3:27 brings out a principle. It says, "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it." So children get their self-esteem from their parents. They learn to have worth and value from you as they're growing up. Once you get older, then you can kind of boost yourself up, so to speak. “Well, I did a pretty good job with that," or “That was okay, I'm glad I passed,” or whatever. But when they're little, they don't do that and they look to you to be able to help them to have certain self-esteem. I'm not talking about vanity, but to have self-confidence.

You see children that are so beaten down that you know they're not going to accomplish anything in life because they're just like a loaf of bread. They just are there and there is no spunk, there was no nothing because dad and mom can't approve of anything that they do. So it's important that you remember to compliment them. It's important that you compliment them for their effort that they do. Grandchildren might bring you something and you look at it, it's this great big yellow ball. And you say, "Wow, that's, that's really nice." Said, "What did you draw here? Boy, you really used a lot of yellow and you did a good job with that yellow, didn't you?" And then they finally tell you that it's a chicken and you turn the paper upside down, there still is no chicken. You just can't see the chicken. You see yellow, but you don't see the chicken. But still, you brag on that with the children and next time, they'll bring you another picture. But if you start picking on them or ridiculing them or putting them down, "Well, that's not a chicken. That's the sorriest chicken I've ever seen in my life. Here, let me show you how to draw a chicken. This is what a chicken looks like." Then you'll never get another picture of a chicken. Chances are you'll never get another picture, period, because we put them down.

A quote from an article, "The Family" by William James, he's a U.S. philosopher. He said, "The deepest principle of human nature is the desire to be appreciated. A compliment is an effective way of raising a child's ego. An ego that is not wrong unless it's out of line and out of sync, then it's wrong. But it's one of the greatest stimulants to renewed effort. It is mean to be stingy with the praise in fear that it will turn a child's head." George Bernard Shaw made the statement and he said, "To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited is as dishonest as withholding payment of a just debt lest your creditors should spend the money unwisely." And that's your reasoning.

One lady proudly said that she never gave compliments. And at that moment, of course, your respect go down the drain. And what was interesting, this same woman loved to have compliments. Somebody would say, "Oh, that's a pretty dress," or, "You look nice today," or something like this, and she'd just light up. But she was proud that she never gave a compliment, and that is so sad. That's really pitiful. If you treat your blessings that way, then you're abusing them. We need to compliment, encourage, correct, and strengthen our children.

Point number three is providing. For this one, I'd like to share with you a comment from a basketball player, Alex English, and his story, he said, "I want to tell you about a man who couldn't be at home with me as much as he wanted to when I was a little boy because he worked too hard to make it comfortable for a life for his family. Yet I feel his influence to this very day. This man was tall and strong. He drove a cement truck down in Columbia, South Carolina where I grew up. He worked long, hard hours all of his life and maybe longer and harder than he had to. You see, he wanted to earn enough not only to take care of our huge family, at times there were more than 12 of us, including brothers and sisters and cousins, but he also helped out anybody who needed it.

If your great-grandmother had a grocery bill she couldn't pay or if a friend of his needed help with the rent, he was always there to pay the bill or to put his name on the line to borrow the money so that he could help them. That's the way he was. People in need had to be helped, no question. He didn't ask questions. He didn't talk much at all, but you couldn't find a more generous, gentle man. Even though our house could get pretty crazy with all of the kids, I never heard him raise his voice. The respect and affection that flowed out from him spoke louder than any lectures I could have heard on how people should act. I hope I can pass this example of quiet love onto you, son." He's talking to his boy.

"One thing I can't give you is the real feeling of what it's like to grow up poor because I did. There was a time when I was little that food was scarce in our house, when Thanksgiving dinner was saved by a bag of groceries from a charitable organization. Every day I'd scour for soda pop bottles that I could collect two cents each and then deposit and maybe accumulate enough pennies to buy some extravagant treat like a chocolate milk or a honeybun." And he goes on to say to his son, "This man I'm telling you about never got to see me play basketball." And Alex English played for the Denver Nuggets. He was a very good basketball player. And he goes on and he says, "He never got to see me play. He was happy for me, pleased by whatever I accomplished. But because of his long hours at the wheel of the cement truck, he could rarely get away to see me play. I knew though that he was proud of me." And he says, "One time he was planning a trip and he fell ill and he died, but his name lives on with you, William Paul English, my son. And I hope to make sure that his values live on in and through you.” His values of hard work, his values of caring and providing of love toward others and so forth, that is quite a legacy that he left.

You know, providing for children is more than just food, shelter, and clothing because we have to provide comfort. We have to provide love for them, more importantly than the food, clothing, and shelter. Here's a quote from Ross Campbell on how to really love your teenager. I saw an article, "Is it Possible to Love a Teenager?" But here's one on how to really love your teenager. "The first responsibility of parents is to provide a loving and happy home. The most important relationship in the home is the marriage bond." And that is so true. So many people put children in front of and before their marriage and that's a shame. "The most important relationship in the home is the marriage bond, which takes precedence over the parent-child relationship. The security of a teenager and the quality of the parent-child bonding are largely dependent on the quality of the marital binding.” So not only providing the food, clothing, and shelter but providing love, security, happiness that we should give to children when they grow up.

In 1 Timothy 5:8, 1 Timothy 5:8, it says, "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Ours, the King James says, “an infidel.” I hear, of course, he's talking in contact about taking care of widows, but it applies, I think, to the whole family unit that we have to take care of our own. So God puts a burden of responsibility on parents to provide for their family, to provide warmth, provide shelter, to provide love, provide care, to provide concern and compassion besides the food, shelter, and clothing.

In Luke 11:11-13, you're familiar with that, that Christ said, "If your son asks you for a fish, would you give him a snake instead? Would you give him a serpent?" He said, "If he asked for an egg, would you give him a scorpion?” And just set back as the thing stings him all over and just laugh and laugh? And he says in verse 13, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask of Him!” And of course, He knows us and God assumes that even as evil as we are, still, we love our children and we are willing to give to them that children are looked at as blessings and they are treated as blessing. The parents are going to give them things, they're going to provide for them so that they remain a blessing.

Number four, number four out of five is example. Woodrow Wilson comment again, this is a separate one. He was still president at Princeton University. He wasn't just a dean but he was president and he spoke these words at a parents' group. He said, "I get many letters from you parents about your children. You want to know why we people up here at Princeton can't make more out of them and just do more for them. Let me tell you the reason why and why we can't. It may shock you a little, and I'm not trying to be rude. But the reason is, that they are your sons, reared in your homes, blood of your blood, bone of your bone. They have absorbed the ideals from your home. They have formed and fashioned them. They are your sons. And in the malleable, moldable years or their lives, you have forever left your imprint upon them."

And our example does mean so much to children. We can say one thing and do another, and which do you think they're going to notice? And if you're not genuine, then your children will grow up with an understanding of lying, of stealing, of not respecting one another and so forth. From an article entitled "A Family Perspective," from this book, it says on page 131, "Children acquire expectations about family life by growing up in families. Childlessness, for example, cannot be socially reproduced through parents' socialization of children. Why? Well, because no children, there's nobody to model after. The growing percentage of children who spend time in single-parent families implies that socializing favoring the conjugal system may be wanting. As an increased number of children spend less time in their traditional family units, they may be less inclined to create such a unit themselves, such as the family decline also has an integration dynamic." So in other words, he's saying that if they don't have a good family life, then chances are they are not going to have a good family life. What children see in their families, they model after it. And they can't help it because that's just the way that they're going to do it.

It's important that the marriage be strengthened so that they give that strength to the children. Jonathan Edwards, I really was not familiar with, but his story of his descendants is inspiring. He was the son of what they felt like was a godly home. His father was a preacher and his mother's father was also a minister. If you trace the history of the offspring from this man, there were more than 400 of them that can be traced from Jonathan Edwards. They include 14 college presidents, 100 professors, 100 of them have been ministers of the gospel, missionaries and theological teachers. More than 100 of them were lawyers and judges. Out of the whole number, 60 have been doctors and as many more authors of high rank and editors of journals. In fact, almost every conspicuous American industry has had as its promoter one or more of the offspring of Edward stock since the remote ancestry was married in the closing half of the 17th century.

Why did these people turn out like this? Because he set an example for them, and that's the family because of the example. The example was powerful and it made an impression. In Proverbs 17:6, it says it's so important that we are genuine and to set the right example for the children. It says, Proverbs 17:6, "Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged; parents and the pride of their children." That's the Living Translation again. And I've known kids that have literally walked with a limp because dad walked with a limp. There wasn't anything wrong with them, but they just mimicked their father. And because they saw what the parents did, so often they turn out the same way.

It is so sad when abused children wind up abusing their own children. I think every single one of them, when they're growing up, they say, "I will never ever do that to my child." And then statistically speaking, they turn around and they do it to their children. They need a model to be able to follow. That's very important. It says in Proverbs 20:7, Proverbs 20:7, "The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children who follow them." In other words, they follow that example. They are blessed because they follow after him and they walk like their dad and they walk in integrity.

Douglas MacArthur said this, he said, "Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; one who will know You are worthy and that to know himself is the foundation of the stone of knowledge… Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goals will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, and yet never forget the past. And all of these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor so that he may always be serious and yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strengths. Then I, his father, will dare to whisper that ‘I have not lived in vain.’"

Point number five. Point number five, the final one is to love your children, to show them affection, to care for them. We all realize this, but children need to be loved. They want to be loved, they crave to be loved. I had a cousin, a girl, who would just pull the dumbest, stupidest things just to get the attention of her parents because they didn't pay any attention to her, period. So she'd just come up and grab this and throw it over and then look at them like, are you going to spank me? That she wanted to be spanked because that was the only time she got attention. That was the only way she could get attention from them, that they just did not show any attention at all. And so she would pull some just horrible stunts because she wanted attention. They need to be loved.

In a book entitled Caring, Feeling, and Touching, it brings out that the most shocking and conclusive evidence of all comes from a study that showed that babies who were not routinely touched, handled, and fondled when they were fed by their orphanage attendants simply withered up and died. It's called Mars React [SP]. The children just die because they have no reason to live. Of course, for years it was assumed that such infants were the victims of some rare disease. But today, no well-run orphanage or daycare center would think of putting a baby down with a bottle propped up on a pillow or another substitute for holding them during the individual feeding. Do you know what they do now? They rock, actually have little cribs or you can go into even preemies where the preemies are kept and they actually have them rocking some motion. They have little holes where the parent can put their fingers through and stroke even the child trying to protect them from disease, but yet the parents are allowed to stroke them. It's important for them to be loved. It's important for them to feel that love and attention coming from people who are supposed to love them.

In 1 John 4:7-8, it says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for God is love; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And he who does not love does not know God, for God is love." And if you love one another, brethren, which we do, should we not love our children? And just as I said, even our church children that we spend time with them, that we take them and we talk to them and we try to get down, as it were, on their level to learn what they are going through and give them wisdom and help, hopefully.

And it says in verse 19 in 1 John 4, "We love Him because He first loved us." How many parents have said, "Well, if my child just loved me, we'd be a whole lot happier, but I just cannot get them to love me!” Who's supposed to reach out first? The parent. “We love Him because He first loved us.” And we as parents need to reach out to our children and to love them and express that love to them. Tell them that you love them, let them know that you love them. I knew a man that told me, and they were married 60-something years, he said, "I could not tell my wife I love her if you held a gun to my head." And yet he loved her and he said, "I love her and she knows I love her, but I can't tell her." I don't understand that.

I recently talked with a woman that said that her husband told her 45 years ago that he loved her and he has never said it since. And even if she asks, "Well, do you love me?" he'll make some flippant answer like, "No, I don't," and yet she knows that he loves her, but he doesn't say it. How would you like that if you lived in a house where your husband or your wife would never ever tell you that they love you? That's really sad.

I want to share with you a comment here from Ross Campbell. He brings out, he says, "As an infant, a child, he needs to be cuddled, hugged, fondled, hugged and kissed— ‘ooey-gooey loves stuff' as my eight-year-old son calls it, this typical type of physical affection is critical from birth until a boy reaches seven or eight years of age— and I mean critical! Research shows that girl infants less than 12 months old receive five times as much physical affection as boy infants. I'm convinced this is why younger boys have many more problems than girls. Five to six times as many boys as girls are in need of psychiatric clinics around the country. As a boy grows and becomes older, his need for physical affection such as hugging and kissing lessens, but the need for physical contact does not."

And it goes on to talk about that physical contact, how that you need to have eye-to-eye contact with them and touch them and so forth in communicating with them. And the children, if you're going to remain a blessing, you should really try to learn of God, that you need to learn about God so that you can conduct your life for God and also to be grateful. Tell your parents when they do something for you that you appreciate what they've done and that you're thankful for it and tell them thank you, that maybe you're going to do the dishes tonight or something like that. Not have the attitude, "Well, they're supposed to feed me!” But be thankful when mother cooks a good meal or dad brings in something, but be grateful.

And number three, dare to be different. Different from the world, different from your peers that you are willing to stand up for your beliefs. When somebody asks about the Feast of Tabernacles, you tell them. When somebody asks, why you don't keep Christmas, you tell them, you don't mince words, you don't offend, but you tell them. You stand up for what you believe and you'll be shocked at what people think.

I want to close by reading from Abigail Van Buren column, "Dear Abby," and this is a prayer that a father… I mean that a person makes, a parent, and it says, "Oh, heavenly Father, make me a better parent. Teach me to better understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, to answer all of their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them, or contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me… Forbid that I should ever laugh at their mistakes, or resort to shame or ridicule when they displease me. May I never punish them for my own selfish satisfaction or to show my power. Let me not tempt my child to lie or steal. And guide me hour by hour that I may demonstrate by all that I say and all that I do that honestly produces happiness. Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. And when I am out of sorts, help me, Oh Lord, to hold my tongue. May I ever be mindful that my children are children and I should not expect of them the judgment of adults. Let me not rob them of the opportunity to wait on themselves and to make decisions… Bless me with the bigness to grant them all of the reasonable requests and the courage to deny them privileges I know will do them harm. Make me fair and just and kind and fit me, Oh Lord, to be loved and respected and imitated by my children. Amen."

Children are a blessing. Treat them as a blessing and you, children, remain a blessing because that is what God says we are to do that truly children are a blessing.

[Gary Petty] I read one time that this was something that was posted, a notice that was posted on an employee bulletin board at a business. It says, "Due to increased competition and a keen desire to stay in business, we find it necessary to institute a new policy. We're asking that somewhere between starting time and quitting time and without infringing on the time devoted to lunch, coffee breaks, rest periods, storytelling, tickets selling, vacation planning, and rehashing of gossip, each employee endeavors to find some time to set aside as what we're calling the work break. This may seem a radical innovation, but we believe the idea has possibilities. It can conceivably be an aid to steady employment and regular paychecks. While adoption to the work break is not compulsory, it's hoped that each employee will find time to give it a fair trial."

But the six years that I spent working in radio advertising, I came in contact with a lot of different businesses, small businesses, big businesses. And one of the problems they all had every one of them was how do we find and keep good employees? That's a problem that they all faced. You say, "Okay, employees, what does that have to do with what we're going to talk about today?" Are you a good employee? Do you work hard? "What's that have to do with my Christianity?"

Actually, the Bible talks about having a work ethic. What does that mean? What does it mean that we are to have a work ethic? What does the Bible really teach us about work? There's an interesting story that we find in 2 Thessalonians 3. That Paul is making some personal comments here to the people of Thessalonica about a problem that they had. Picking it up in verse 6. He says, "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which you received from us."

Now, these people were disorderly. And he's actually saying, you know, these people have become so disorderly in the congregation that we're just suggesting you don't even talk to them. That's a pretty strong statement. Like what in the world were they doing? I mean, disorderly means that they're causing problems, they're destroying relationships. I mean, what in the world are these people doing to cause that kind of problem? You think well, they must have some heresy, you know that they're teaching or what are they doing? He says, "For you, yourselves know… He says… Let me give you an example here. "For you, yourselves know how you ought to follow us."

He's talking about him and some traveling companions who had been with him when he went to actually visit the church of Thessalonica. "How you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you." Okay, well, we didn't create this problem when we were there so we tried to show you an example. He says, "Nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we did not have authority, to make ourselves example of how you should follow us." So he uses himself as an example. He says, “You know, when I came there,” with his ministerial companions, he says, “we didn't taking money from you to serve you while we were there.” But they worked day and night. And of course, we know that he was a tentmaker.

So he says, "We worked our own jobs and didn't take money, even though we could have. I mean, it would only be ethically right for the church to support us while we were there." But he says, "No, we didn't ask anything from you." So there's a problem here he's getting to that has to do with disorderly conduct. He says, "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but they're busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread."

Boy, what kind of major problem were they having? Now, I don't know exactly, but the cause was that there was a large enough group of people in their congregation who just refused to work. They just didn't work. And it says there were busybodies. They spent their time just meddling in everybody else's business. So they were creating this constant problem in the church. Which I mean, that seems sort of odd to us today. I mean, I don't think I've ever been in a congregation where I've seen this exact problem where you had a large number of people just creating all this problem at church because they just refuse to work.

But there's an important statement he makes here. He says, "For even when we were with you…" I'm sorry, he says, "For if they shall not work, they shall not eat… If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” That's the point he's making. Now, the Bible is very clear in the absolute command to take care of the poor. Everyone has a responsibility to take care of the poor. Poor people who are there because some calamity has happened, because maybe they just don't have the skills to get certain jobs. Maybe they… you know, there's all kinds of reasons why someone could be poor. And the church is given and ancient Israel were given explicit commands to help take care of poor people. What Paul says here is, if a person is poor because they won't work, you don't take care of them.

Now, that seems strange too in the society we live in. And why would he say that? If the person is hungry, and he says no if it's because they refuse to eat, let them get hungry, and then they will go work. Let them get hungry then they'll go work. So he's making a point here. Now, once again, we have to put this in the context of why he makes this statement. There is in the congregation a group of people who cause nothing but problems in the church. They're meddling in everybody else's business or probably just showing up at people's houses expecting to be taken care of.

Although I have had… I have had as a pastor, a few people that do that. I've come across people who will go from church to church. And they'll come in and they'll spend three-four months in a church living with people, being taken care of by people always saying they're going to get a job. Sometimes I've seen it go on for six months and the people will take them in. A lot of times it's older people. Then they'll wear out there welcome there, and go someplace else. And eventually, it comes down to this person doesn't even look for a job. And so you have a conversation and say, look, "You just can't come in and take advantage of these people." I mean, in some cases, large amounts of money were given to then and then they disappear.

Then I get an email from another pastor that says, "Hey, so and so has showed up at my church and they just moved in with a couple of the elderly people." And I've seen men… it's always men. But I've seen men be able to do this sometimes for a couple of years before they get caught. Now, Paul would say, "Sorry, you don't work, you don't eat. We don't give you anything. You don't work, you don't receive shelter." He's talking about Christians taking care of Christians here. He says, "If you refuse to do certain things, then the church is not to take care of you." So this means work is important. This is an extreme example but this is where I want to start. It must be important for Paul to make these instructions to a church. If a person refuses to work, it's not that they can't work, or maybe they just don't have a lot of skills or whatever. And you know, they're doing the best they can, maybe they have a real low paying job because that's all they can do then we're supposed to take care of them, help them. “But if they refuse to work,” he says, “then you don't take care of them.”

So work is important. Work is an important part of who we are because work is part of our Christian character. Now, I'm going to talk about being a workaholic here. I might mention a couple of times. Being a workaholic is the other end of the scale. Being a workaholic is spiritually wrong also. When we put ourselves into our work so much that we're not having a right relationship with God, we're not taking care of our families, we're not taking care of ourselves. And recreation is part of life. Fun is part of life. So that's that other extreme.

But usually, we as human beings tend to fall on the sort of lazy side than the workaholic side. So we're going to talk about work today. Because it is an ethical issue. Now, I will say this when I talk about work here, and I've seen this happen in the church. I've actually had people come to me and want to counsel because they'll say, "You know, I realized that I'm preparing for the Kingdom of God. And since I'm preparing for the kingdom of God, I'm just a" and you can fill in the blank. “I'm just a construction worker. I'm just a salesman. I'm just a housewife. I'm just a office worker.” And whatever they fill in and they say, "Probably I need to get another job to prepare for the Kingdom of God." Your career isn't the issue, it's your work ethic that's the issue. It's your work ethic that's the issue, not what you're doing.

I used to tell my kids, "Find out what you're really good at, that makes you happy and go become the best at it. You may not make the most money, but you will be happy." When you're doing work you love, you're happy. Now, unfortunately, every job has drudgery. We'll talk about that in a minute. And you can be trapped at a job sometimes for a while that you hate. Okay, what do you do with that? Well, we'll talk about that in a minute, too. These are all real issues. This is practical Christianity, practical Christianity. So it doesn't matter what job you do. God doesn't care if you're an architect. God doesn't care if you're a boss with 100 people. God doesn’t… Well, I say He doesn't care.

What's really interesting is go through all the scriptures about employers. There are lots of scriptures in the Old and New Testament about employers. There's one of the laws in the Old Testament that says, "If you withhold your wages that you owe people as an employer, God will punish you." Is that a little scary? God says, "I hold that, personally, that's a personal issue. If people work for you, and you hold back their wages, then that's personal between Me and you. I will deal with that." So there's a lot of instructions about bosses and employers. But we're going to talk about employees today. Most of us are employees. There's a few here that might own your own business, but most of us do not.

So what does the Bible teach about work? You know, I talked about your jobs. Most people will have multiple jobs in a lifetime. What's really different than say 50 years ago, my dad, his dad, back then, most people had one career. Many times they worked for the same company their entire lives. That's not true today. Most of you, if you're young, you're going to have more than one career. You actually have more than one career. You may start out in something and end up doing something totally different by the end of your life.

In fact, the average person today will have three different careers. Now, we're not talking about three different jobs. You may have a career which you work for three or four different companies, and then another career and you work for three or four different companies. So it's changed from… it used to be you get hired by somebody, you work for that same company maybe your whole life. It's not that way anymore. Remember, it's not the specific job. It's the work ethic that's the Christian part of what you do. God doesn't care if you're a farmer. Be a good farmer. Like I used to tell my son he loved working on cars, I said, "Go be a car mechanic." "I can't make a lot of money." "Just go be the best car mechanic you can be." Now, he's selling insurance and loves it. So I was wrong on that one.

I used to tell my kids, "I can't determine what you're going to do, you have to decide that. You have to decide what you're going to do because it's your life, it's not mine." So, learn the work ethic, and you're going to be pretty much successful in everything you do. Now, I say successful, even if you do it right, bad things happen. In preparing this, I looked up probably 10 websites. They were business websites. They were management websites. One was a college website giving advice to students on reasons people get fired. And, you know, the number one was they just don't do their job. Like, number two was people fall asleep. That kept showing up all over. People sleep, you know. Number three was they're spending all their day on their cell phone, or, you know, they're just not involved in their work. There was all these reasons.

But then I saw another list from a business magazine. It was pretty interesting. It said, "We're going to tell you some other reasons why people get fired. The boss wants to give the job to his nephew,” okay. And then there were reasons why you get fired, which you are doing a great job and your manager becomes absolutely jealous of you and gets you fired. And I've known people that have gone through that. Got fired because they were doing a good job, and somebody got jealous.

So, okay, life, you know, there's no magic pill that says do this equals perfect success, that's not life. Sometimes you do it right and something bad happens. The difference is when you're doing it right you will find something else to do. You can recover from the problem if you're doing it right. If you're doing it wrong… I mean, you get fired from someplace three or four times just because it says you're insubordinate. You just aren't going to listen to your boss. You think he's an idiot, and you've been fired from three places because you think the boss is an idiot. Guess what the next boss is going to do, not hire you, right? They don't want to put up with that. So if you do it the right way, you have a much better chance of recovering from the bad things when they happen. Do it the wrong way and sooner or later you dig yourself in a hole.

What does the Bible say about work? Let's go to Colossians. Say well, this isn't a spiritual issue. Whether I daydream on the job, whether I play video games on the job when I should doing something else, that's not a spiritual issue. Colossians 3:22. Bondservants, now bondservants, so that was you worked for somebody because you owed them something. This is a type of employership. I mean, there were businesses in the Roman Empire where they hired employees. There were people that had bondservants. In other words, "you owe me something so you got to work for me."

There were people who… if you were craftsmen, especially, you would be hired out to different people. Of course, they had slaves, too. So Paul is just talking to a class of people that work for other people. He says, "Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh,” what? Now, not if they tell you to do something against God. Now, if your employer tells you to do something dishonest, you say, "No." And sooner or later, most of us have had to face that. I've had to face it earlier in my life. Or you just say, "I can't do that. That's immoral. That's wrong, whatever you're asking me to do."

I remember one radio station… I probably should have mentioned this before. I was really supposed to go date all the young girls that worked at the advertising agencies after… you know, not date, just go to the bar with them. I said, "I got a pregnant wife at home. I'm not going to go out after work and take these young single women to a bar." He said, "Well, you don't have to let them know you won't do anything." That's literally what I was told. "Just, you know, have some fun with them and then you get the account." And I said, "I don't want the account that bad." The owner of that radio station told me you know… it was the number one radio station in Austin, Texas. He said, "You know, you're a nice guy and in my experience, nice guys don't make it in a lot of companies." I didn't.

So you obey them in their job what they're telling you to do not with eye service as men-pleasers. In other words, you're not doing this because you just want to get on the good side of your boss. But in sincerity of heart. In other words, you do your job, you do it because you want to do the job right. Why? Because you're fearing God. "And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Jesus Christ." What? He makes this a spiritual issue. When you go to work, you give all that you have because you think that you're serving God. "I'm serving God."

Why would you do that? Because to your employer, to the people you work with you are representing God to them. Believe me, they all figure out you're a little bit different. They know your religion is a little bit different. Wherever you are, you represent God. And it's that way when you go to work. So when you go to work you give everything you have. Look what it says in 1 Timothy. Here, Paul writing once again, 1 Timothy 6. He really spells it out here. He says, "Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke…” in other words, sometimes when you work with somebody else, you're under a yoke, right? You don't show up on time. And by the way, that's one of the reasons that kept coming up, people were getting fired. Now, certain companies are very loose with that policy, certain aren't.

And if you work for a company and said, "What time we start?" "Oh, 9, 9:30, you know, just sort of whenever you come in." And there's companies like that. Then you get a company that says, "We expect you here at 8:30." And you're there at 8:40 and they fire you. And you can say, "Well, the last company was like this. This isn't fair." And they say, "But you don't work with the last company. You work for us." And so it is a yoke to work for other people. Now it doesn't mean it can't be fun. I mean, I enjoy being a pastor. No, I love being a pastor. But there are days where it's tough. There's days where it's tough.

He says, “yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor." Why? I mean, all of us here have worked for some person that you know, wasn't worthy of honor, right? We've all been there. So why would you do that? And here's why. "So that the name of God and His teachings will not be blasphemed." So that the name of God won't be blasphemed. They may say, "I don't like you." They may not like you because you are so honest. They may not like you because you are obeying God, but God won't be blasphemed. And that's why I said, when you go to work, you represent God. When you go to work, you are there your work ethic is part of your Christianity. So yeah, we should talk about this. Yes, it is important. And yes, it is one of the keys to success.

And sometimes younger people, you know, struggle with… you know, we all did when… Although I didn't. When I was young, I figured out somehow, I don't know why, when I was about 15 years old, I made a list of all the things I wanted to do in life. You know, get baptized. Find me a good woman that will take me, have children. Okay, that was number three. After that, it was work in radio, become a television talk show host, become an author of books, work as a reporter for… I had all these things I was going to do. Some of them I've done, I tell you what, being a minister wasn't on the list. Some I've done. Some I haven't.

But we all struggle with, "What am I supposed to do with my life?" You will have lots of choices in life and you probably… whatever choice you make at 18, you're going to change. The important thing is, what is your work ethic? Because you can change. I mean, I've known people who were doctors and became something else at age 30 and have been very successful. They were successful doctors. Now, they're successful with something else. I mean, what a change. You become a doctor at 28, at 35 you change jobs. You can have lots of choices in life. The important thing is if you learn how to work, you actually are equipped to make those choices. And you'll be equipped to make the changes if you want to.

If you don't know how to work, you don't have the ability to make the changes. There are people who are trapped in jobs because they've never learned how to work and they can't get out of it. It's all they can do. Now, some people, it depends on your personality. You find a job and you like it, and you stay in it for the rest of your life. And that's great too. But you have the equipment to make the decision. You see what I mean? You have the ability to make those decisions because your character is right, your work ethic is right. Otherwise, other people make those decisions for you. So that's what this is about. And so you are following God. You are doing this because you represent God. Now, that would change a lot of things, how you handle a lot of things at work.

So that's the first point I want to make. You know, when you go to work, you're going to work there as a representative of God. Now, you have to accept that. If you don't accept that it's like everything else. You either accept you're a Christian or not, but we shouldn't call ourselves Christian if we don't believe that we are followers of Christ and represent Christ. If we're Christians, we're representing. What we do at work counts. What we do at work matters. I mean, you spend 8 hours, you know, 40 hours a week at least at work probably more.

And a lot of even your happiness depends on what happens when you work. You know, a lot of times people will drag home their problems from work and bring them home and have a rotten marriage because of the problems they have at work. Especially if they're both working, they both drag it home and, you know, one can't help the other and they're unhappy. And the real issue sometimes isn't the marriage. The real issue is what's happening at work.

The second point… Now, we're going to get down to some real practical… the first thing here is a little bit conceptual. We work to represent God. Okay, so that means what I do is important. The second is that a proper work ethic requires that there's a list, you accomplish the work that is assigned to you in the way that it has been assigned to you and in the time allotted. Here's your job, do it this way and do it in this amount of time. Now, sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, this way doesn't work." Sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, I can't do it in this amount of time." Sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, I finished early so I didn't go to sleep, or I didn't sit around and, you know, just call up and look at pictures of puppies. Instead, I've come and said, "What do you want me to do next boss?"

I mean, one of the reasons we hate work so much is we get bored because we're bored with what we're doing. You're never bored when you're locked into doing something and you're putting your effort into it. Proverbs 26. Here's where it shows laziness is a moral deficiency. It is a moral problem. Proverbs 26:13, "The lazy man says, ‘There's a lion in this road! A fierce lion in the streets!” In other words, "I can't go outside." They have an excuse for everything. I mean, the excuse is there's a lion in the street is silly. There's a lion in the street, it doesn't matter. In other words, the excuse doesn't matter. "I'm just not going to do it. I just make up an excuse."

"As the door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed." I love that one. You know, you've heard an old creaky door that's all rusty and will hardly open. Although I have to admit it at 63 there's days that getting out of bed is like that. But it's literal, because that's the sound of my joints, okay. But we have to make ourselves get up and go. And there's a few people, most of us really can't believe it, they just wake up, jump out of bed. They're happy. They're ready to go. And it's, like, the rest of us, we just sort of walk around in a stupor for a while, and grunt for coffee and, you know. But you make yourself do it. More people have lost jobs because they simply won't make themselves do it.

And he calls this a lazy person. "The lazy man buries his hand in the bowl; and wearies him to bring it back to his mouth." Now you can imagine, you take your spoon and you stick it in the bowl and you just sit and stare and say, "Would someone feed me please?" It's an absurdity to this. "The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly." And that's very true. The more lazy we are, the more reasons we have for being lazy, the more reasons why it's somebody else's fault. And the more reasons why, everybody that tells us, "No, that's not how the way it works," we say they're either wrong or they don't understand, or "Hey, get out of my face. You're oppressing me." And so we stay the way we are.

So there is an amount of effort that we have to put into this. A small business had a sign hanging on the wall that said, "If you don't believe the dead come back to life, you've never been here at quitting time." You know, all work does have some drudgery. I mean, I have to admit, when I'm doing paperwork sometimes, I'd rather be out visiting people or, you know, working on a Bible study. I have certain paperwork I have to do. But it has to be done. So you pile through it, you know. I'll tell my wife, "I'm going up to my office. I'll be up there for three hours. I'm doing paperwork." And I find out when I tell her that she won't even talk to me for three hours. It's, like, "He's up there. Leave him alone." But you got to plow through it, you got to make yourself do it. It has to be done. There is a point we have to face no matter what the job you have. And sometimes when you start out in a job, you know, they give you the worst jobs to begin with then you have to do the worst jobs.

I think I've mentioned this before I worked… In the Worldwide Church of God, I worked in SEP. And I worked two summers, where I was in charge of the janitorial crew. Now, one of the things we had to do was the bathhouses every morning after hundreds of teenagers went in and destroyed it. We would get a dorm of maybe, you know, 30 teenagers, and now we had to go clean up something that was, like, out of a horror movie. I can't explain what 200 teenagers will do to a bathhouse, okay. And they would all be, I mean, griping and complaining. They didn't want to go in, So I had to give them the little speech all the time. That little speech was, "in life, you're going to be asked to do things you don't want to do. We have an hour to do this. We can go make this a game and I am…" the other two people I had working with me "we'll go in and help you do it. We'll get right…" I mean, the toilets were always clogged up. It was just horrible. "We will help you do this. And if we work as a team, and you do what we say, we'll be done in a half-hour. And then the other half hour, you have off. You can do whatever you want. You can go sit around." You know, all they ever wanted to do when they were done was just is sit around and talk. "You can do that. If you don't, you'll be here the full hour and only half the job will be done and you will hate it every minute."

And so we would go in, and for, you know, 20 minutes to a half-hour, we told them how to work as a team, we told them what to do, how to motivate each other. When one person slacks, everybody's got to make them work. And you know, they were always done in a half-hour. And then they had a half-hour off. Well, I can't say always. Because sometimes you get a group that just wouldn't do it. And an hour later, they were mad and grumpy. They'd be mad and grumpy the whole rest of the morning. They were upset. They hated it. How dare people make them have to do this? And they were miserable.

Now, everybody had the same job and it was just as bad for everybody. And you know, some groups came out of there, fired up ready to go, "Hey, man, we got a half-hour." Other groups after an hour were, "We hated this." And you know, it would take them a long time to get over it. The idea is at times, we just have to say, "The job has to be done," and we throw ourselves into it completely.

Many years later, I had a man come up to me and say, "Hey, you changed my life." I said, "I did. How did I ever change your life?" He said, "At SEP, that little talk you gave to us every time when we had to go in and clean out the bathhouse." I said, "Yeah?" He said, "I applied that to my life." And he says, "Now I own my own business and I'm quite wealthy." You simply attack the job at hand. And then you go do something else. But you attack the worst job by attacking it. You go into it. You do your work. Now, work ethic requires that you accomplish the work assigned to you, the way that it has been assigned, and in the time allotted. And so you do it.

The third point, a proper work ethic requires you use your time to give your employee a full day's work. You give them a full day's work. Say, "Yeah, but sometimes, you know, eight hours is a long time." I understand. But when I started to look at the reason people get fired, and so many of the times is because they're not working. They're talking, they're gossiping, they're texting, they're doing all different kinds of things.

Understand this, what if a friend of yours said, "Here. I can't go to the store. I'm going to give you $100 to go to the store and get all this stuff for me. Here's a $100. And since you're doing this for me, and it's so nice, you know, get yourself some lunch." You say, "Okay," and you took their $100. And you're supposed to be back in an hour. You come back three hours later and instead of the list, you have two things in a bag. And they say, "Well, wait a minute, you know, I had all this stuff." And you say, "Yeah, but, you know, I was having such a good time at lunch, picked up a couple of other friends and we used your money buying lunch and all I had enough was to get you this." You'd say, "You stole my money," right?

If someone did that to you wouldn't you say, "You stole my money?" When you go and work for a person and agree to work for them for a certain amount of money, and you don't give them a full day's work, I don't care how much the money is, the money isn't the issue. It's you that's the issue, who you are. And you don't give them a full day's work, you're stealing from the employer. You're stealing their time. "Here. I'm going to pay you to work for me." "Thank you. I'll take the money and I won't work." It's stealing. There's a point of dishonesty here. So we don't think that way. There's a point of dishonesty.

Ways that we waste time at work. "Oh good, another survey." No, I'm going to go to the Bible. Proverbs 14, a couple of places in Proverbs. Proverbs 14. There's a lot of benefits to work in our character and even some happiness. We'll talk about that in a minute. Proverbs 14:23. "In all labor, there is profit." There's a benefit from work. And once again, being a workaholic isn't the issue here. It's working that's the issue. When you are supposed to work you work.

"In all labor there's profit, but an idle chatter leads only to poverty." In other words, you spend all your time talking at work, on your computer at work, unless you're working on a computer, obviously, texting at work, sharing all your different plans and, you know, getting together all the people you're going out to dinner with afterwards, and you do all that while at work. You can end up in poverty because you're not going to have a job. You say, "Boy, that employer sure is mean and tough. What's their problem?" Now, remember, they paid you to work. They offered you money to work and you agreed to it. If you don't like the agreement, quit but don't steal from them.

You know, you're going to get in a bad job some point in life too. Once again, if you have the right character, if you have the tools, you'll be able to get out of a bad job. If you don't have the tools, guess what happens? "I can't get out of a bad job because I can't get any job," or you quit and end up what, doing nothing. I've seen people quit jobs. I knew a man one time who had been fired… I don't remember the exact number… It's been so many years ago. This was, like, 35 years ago. But I think he'd been fired from 12 jobs in 16 years all because of the Sabbath. I don't believe that. You might lose a job or two over the Sabbath, but if you're a good employee, you're going to find a job someplace. I think he's a bad employee. Now, a couple of times might be over the Sabbath but I don't believe all of them were.

Look at Proverbs 12:11. "He who tills his land will be satisfied with bread, but he who follows frivolity is devoid of understanding." In otherwise words, he who just…"All I want to do is have fun." Well, there's a time for fun, by the way, God is not against fun. There's a time for fun. And it's great when your work is fun, too. I mean, I have fun times at my job sometimes, and sometimes it's not. But when you just pursue having fun, instead of getting joy out of your work, he says, you don't understand what's going to happen to you. It doesn't work that way.

Proverbs 19:15 "Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." In other words, when we are lazy, you know what happens? We get tired all the time. We lose a desire to achieve anything. Part of work is achieving something. It's achieving something. Now, some of you remember a couple of years ago, I kept using the example of how I told my wife I would paint the bathroom and then didn't do it. Okay. Well, I don't know, about nine months ago, I painted the bathroom, okay. But I have to tell you when I finished painting the bathroom… she wasn't there I thought I'd surprise her. And I looked around and I thought, "I really feel good about this." And then she walked in and said, "It needs another coat." So I put another coat on, and I felt good about that, too, right. When you accomplish something, you feel good and that is worth… You know, sometimes you don't work because of your boss and you don't work because of the money. Sometimes you work because in the end, "I did a good job. I did that." It's your character that counts. It's who you are that counts. And so you do what's right. Otherwise, you just get… the more lazy you are… Here's the strangest thing. You ever say, "Oh, I wish I had a day off with nothing to do."

Yeah, I do that and every once in a while I try to take a day off with nothing to do. And it's okay for a while then I start getting antsy and sort of nervous and sort of crazy like and then… then I have to tell myself, "Settle down. There's work to do tomorrow. It's okay." So you can't be a workaholic either. But it's funny, if I had nothing to do all the time, I'd be miserable. Wouldn't you? If you had nothing, no goals, nothing to do, nothing to achieve, you'd be miserable.

"Oh, I just wish somebody would take care of me." No, you don't, you wouldn't live life with somebody just taking care of you every moment. We're not designed to be that way. We're designed to go work and produce and achieve. All of us are every human being. Or we just get sleepy.

A fourth point is that a proper work ethic means that we exhibit a very high standard of honesty and morality. Let's go to Titus 2. Titus 2, I'm going to read this from the NIV. In the King James, it says bondservants here which is more of an employee relationship. But here in this translation… this is Titus 2:9. "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not talk back to them." Okay, you just don't talk back to your employer all the time. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't give good suggestions. Most employers want a good… I mean, you might get some hard-nosed person that doesn't. But most employers want a good suggestion if they can see it's good. "Hey, if we do this would this make this better?" You know, because they know you now hey, you're concerned about the job. You're concerned about what you're doing. Your work is important to you. But he says, "And not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive." He says you be so honest, such a good upstanding person, such a moral person, that you make Christianity attractive to pagans.

"Boy, I wish I had more Christians like you working, you know, for me because you're good workers. I can trust you, people. You're not going to steal from me. I'm not going to have to worry because I can't figure out why.” You know, “I just bought a box of copy paper and half of it it's gone." "Oh yeah, I took it home. You know, my kids use it." That's stealing. And so we are to make… It's so fascinating here. Paul over and over again says, remember when you're out there working who you represent. Be moral and be honest. We should be very, very, very honest.

And don't think they don't notice. People notice whether you're honest or not. They do. They will notice whether you're honest or not. And this is more important than your job title. This is more important than how much money you make, your honesty. I've seen Christians sacrifice their honesty for more money, or sacrifice their honesty to get a higher position. And that's not what this is about. That higher position or more money means nothing to God. Honesty means something to God. So don't buy into this sort of American dream. "The more power and money I have, the more important I am to God," because that's not true. It's just not true. It's who you are as His child that's important to Him.

Let me just sort of wrap up with a few things here. Why do we work then? Okay, we work to… What's our benefit, if you will, from working? Constructive work gives us a sense of purpose and a sense of accomplishment in your daily life. You know, I'm 63. I know a lot of men and women that retire at 65. I couldn't imagine retiring at 65. I can't even imagine… I’ve got so much more to accomplish. In fact, I'm getting to the place that I'm even more serious about what I have to accomplish because, well, you know, I don't have a lot of time left here. I'm going to live another 30 years. I got more things to accomplish.

And so this constructive work gives us a sense of accomplishment. Even if our boss… see once again it's you get a benefit from working. What did God tell Adam and Eve? Go to Genesis 2:15. Genesis 2. It's a very important passage here. "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend it and to keep it." "You are to work this garden." He didn't say, “Oh, here's the garden. It'll sort of grow itself. Just let everything run wild, it'll be fine." He says, "You are to tend it and to keep it." "You have work to do here, son, and you're going to like working. You're going to get up in the morning and you're going to enjoy going out and tending the garden." Without a sense of accomplishment, without things to do, Adam would have been bored, even in Eden. We are designed to accomplish things.

There's a study that was done in Harvard. And it's an interesting study because the first time I read of this study was in the 1980s. And it had started kind of back in the 1940s. I just read this week because I was looking at the study. The study continues on. Some of the people involved in this study in the 1940s are still alive and they're still studying them, these people at Harvard. The people who started the original study are all dead it's new, but they've been studying these… I think it was 465 boys. And they were all from inner-city, Boston. And they had all different backgrounds, and all different economic backgrounds, and educational backgrounds, and ethnic backgrounds. You know, they're just from all over the place. And so they started to go through them. What were they like at 15 or where were they at 25? So in the 1980s, these guys are in their 40s and 50s. Well, they're in their 50s at this point. And they found some very interesting things.

Now, as they continued on as they got older, into their ‘70s and ‘80s now, and '90s, they found that there were two things that changed their lives more than anything. One was the quality of relationships they had when they were younger. Were there adults who loved them or not? Oh, yeah that makes sense, doesn't it? That was the most… The number one impact on their lives, whether there were adults that loved them and interacted with them as children. The second one was whether they had work to do as a child.

You say, "Oh, we just put our kids in the salt mines." This was as simple as mowing the grass. It was as simple as cleaning your room. And in doing so, they found out that these young boys who had interactive relationships, people who actually cared for them, and taught them and interacted with them, and then they were made to work. Those were the two greatest factors in their success of life and how happy they were.

People who work and put themselves into their work are happier. They're not bored. They have purpose. And like I said, these jobs were just… "Okay, you're 15. Go get a job," you know. No. It could be as simple as, "Okay, you have chores, and you have to take out the garbage and you participate in what the family does." Or sometimes a lot… These boys came from broken families. Still, there was always some adults somewhere that interacted with them in a positive way. And they always had some value in their work. "I'm producing something, and as I produce something, I have value. I produce something and therefore I have value." And as they grew up that changed their lives.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your children… the greatest gift you can give your children is your love and your time. A second greatest gift you can give them is teaching them God's way. Now, you have to give them love and time before you can teach them God's way. "Okay, we're going to have school today. I'm going to teach you God's way and the rest of the time I'm going to ignore you." That doesn't work. You give them love and time first, and that builds the relationship that you can say, "let me tell you about God," and it means something.

If we don't give our children of ourselves, then somebody else gives them of themselves. And it's probably be the other kid next door. You see what I mean? We can't let other people raise our children. We have to give them our love and our time. Then the second most important thing you could do is give them God's way and teach it and live it for them. And the third most important thing you can do, make them do some chores, make them do some work. That there's purpose in work. There's meaning and work.

I could remember my dad telling me… we’re sanding floors, which is hard work. I was a teenager. He said, yeah, he says, "I worked hard, worked hard. My dad pushed me and pushed me. Because he was pushing me all the time. “Do this better. Work harder, do this,” you know, just all the time. He said that one day, he said, “Okay, you got to finish this job.” And he left. And he said, I thought, "Good. I'm going to take a cigarette break." Because he was a chain smoker before he came into the Church. He said, “But I couldn't. I tried, and I couldn't light it I had to go finish the job."

So when I was about 17, one day he said, "You got to finish the job." I said, "Oh, good." And when he showed up I'm just finishing it. And he said, "Yeah, that's what I figured how long would it take you to finish it." I thought, "Yeah, I just finished the job." He did the same thing to me that his dad did to him. We have to realize we teach them to work. And I sure was proud of that floor. I still remember it. I still remember that it was a Lebanese club and they had, like, a meeting room, ballroom in it. And that looked like a sheet of glass. That floor had been just sanded perfectly and finished perfectly. And it looked like… And I still remember that. I was probably 17 years old. I don't remember any of the girls when I was 17. But I remember that floor.

A secondary reason we work is to support our families. This is important to God. 1 Timothy 5:8. I don't remember any girls because it seems to me that I've been married… it seems to me, I've known my wife since I was a baby. It seems somehow we've been connected since we were children. I know that's not true. But it seems to me that way. So I don't remember anybody else. Yeah, she's always been there. 1 Timothy 5:8. "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Think about that statement. If you can work… Now, once again, sometimes we can't work or sometimes we're limited at what we can do or sometimes we just don't have opportunities.

I mean, sometimes you look at some… Darris McNeely just got back from a trip to Africa. And some of those people are doing as hard as they can and there's only so much money they can bring in. You can work 15 hours a day and you're never going to get out of a dirt hut. But they work, you know. You do your part. He's saying here the person says, "Nah, take care of me." He says you're worse than a person that's not even a Christian. See how much he ties this into our Christianity?

We have responsibilities. We work for other people. You know, and I will speak to the young men here. Guys, young men, when you marry and you have children, and especially if your wife says, "I need to stay home and take care of those children," your God-given responsibility is to take care of them. I don't care what the cost. If we can't do that don't get married and don't have children. Be man enough not to do it. Our responsibility is to take care of those if they need us. And, you know, sometimes women will have careers and then have two or three children say, "I can't do this. I can't do both of them." And we man up. How many hours a week do you work to do that? As many as it takes. As many as it takes. That's what we do.

And if we aren't willing to do that, you're not worthy of a wife. It's that simple. That's what Paul is saying. There's a loss of manhood that I'm concerned with. We sacrifice what we have to sacrifice for our families. That's part of work. Now, fortunately, hopefully, you have a job you don't have to do all that. But believe me, I know years ago, when I was a kid, I saw men work two or three jobs to feed a family, not because they had a great career. They worked two or three jobs just to feed a family. They would do whatever it took.

People had bigger families. The woman couldn't work. She had six kids. And that's what they did. Did they want to work three jobs? No. Why did they do it? It's what we do. We work to help those who are in financial need. I know sometimes some of these ideas are not popular in our society. The destruction of manhood is one of the most terrible things that's happened to our country. And now what's happening is destruction of womanhood. I mean, what God expects of women. If you destroy the men, what are the women going to do, right, what choice do they have?

And now where we have little three-year-olds that have decided that they're of a different sex. And parents who say, "Okay." A society cannot survive that, understand that. A society cannot survive that. Oh, it won't fall tomorrow, but it will fall. That is totally against the way anything is worked. Even the pagans knew that much. Even the ancient pagans knew that much.

Ephesians 4:28, "Let him who stole steal no more." So he's just telling people in church look, you got to change your… you know, if you used to be a thief, you're a Christian now. You got to stop being a thief. But notice what he says, "But rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need." Paul actually says to people in the Church, "Okay, not stealing is the letter of the law. You and I have to go way beyond the letter of the law." He says, "Go work so you can help somebody else and give them a hand up. Go work so you can give to somebody else. Somebody gives you a hand up you go work and get somebody…" It's not, like, "Oh, good, somebody give me a hand up," keep giving your hand out. No. If someone gives you a hand up you go work and give somebody else a hand up. You and I are required by God to help each other in our times of need, and our times of poverty, and our times of old age, and our times of widowhood. We are required to help each other. It's at the center of God's way, that kind of love. And he says, start in the Church of God's, start in the house of God. And obviously with our own families, whether they're in the Church or not. That's where we just start.

And then the last reason, of course, is you and I have a duty to pay tithes and offerings to God. It's a duty. We should work because we wish to fulfill that duty. The work habits we form are part of our character. It's part of who we are. This is practical Christianity. "Wow, you've made looking at my cell phone, at my desk, some church issue." "No, it's practical Christianity. This isn't a church issue. It's Christianity issue." Work is important. And every day you have an opportunity when you go to work to be dependable and responsible and to show people what a Christian looks like. We're honest, we work hard, we're trustworthy. Those are all words that came up in what we've talked about here.

Also, you could be a whole lot happier when you just work hard. I don't care what it is. Scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets. I mean I think of all the things I've done in my life, sanding floors, painting houses. Well, I did have one job I failed miserably at. It was being a roofer. And the guy hired me… his son hired me and I said, "I don't know anything about roofing. I know nothing." He said, "Yeah, well, don't tell my dad. We just need some guys to work." So I spent 12 hours on the roof, trying to watch everybody else and figure out what they were doing. So at the end, the guy said, "You know, you're a hard worker, but you know absolutely nothing about roofing." And I said, "I know I don't." He says, "Well, I'm going to pay you because you're a hard worker, but I got to hire somebody that knows about roofing." I said, "I understand. I didn't tell your son I knew anything about roofing." And of course, they all laughed. They thought it was sort of funny. I was so glad I got fired from that job. I hated that job. But you know, I wasn't going to quit. I had told him I'd work the summer. I was going to work the summer and I thought, "By the end of summer I'll figure out how to be a roofer." But I was so glad I didn't have to figure out how to be a roofer. But I said I would. You know why I was going to do that? Not because I have great character because my dad had drilled me so much I had to finish the job. Even it was going to be all summer, I was going to learn how to be a roofer. So I was glad. And don't ask me to roof because I have no idea how to do that.

But these things make us happier. And it's these things that make up our work ethic. These are the traits that God is looking for. And these are the traits, not your job, but these character traits that God is going to use to serve Jesus Christ when He comes.

Children are blessings. As we have already seen, what is it? Five, six or seven were blessed up here? Children are blessings, and they're blessings from God — Psalms 127:3-4. (Clearing throat) Try to hold back my power for the end, if I have any left.

Psalms 127:3 — "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord..." They are a gift; they are a blessing, a possession given to us, but they are a blessing and notice he says,"And the fruit of the womb," children, are "...his reward." So, God blesses people with children, and children are a blessing.

Verse 4 — "As arrows are in the hand of a might man; so are children of the youth." They're an asset. They're a blessing to have. Children are blessings.

Do you realize that in the Bible God uses the term children sixteen hundred and fifty times — little children, children of light, children of God, the term child is used a hundred ninety times alone? Three of the Ten Commandments God gave to sanctify the family, to safeguard the family. "Honor your father and mother. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's house." Those three commandments were given to sanctify and protect the family.

It's safe to say that God loves children, as we heard in the sermonette by Mr. Pinelli, that Jesus Christ took them up into His arms. He rebuked the disciples who said, "Ah, the Master doesn't have time for them. What are you bringing them to the Master for? He's got more important things to do than to take a little child in His arms."

But Jesus Christ rebuked them. He said, "You let them come to me." Little children are blessings.

How many parents enjoy just watching their children sleep when they have a new baby? Bring in the grandparents. "Come see, they're sleeping." Who looks at people sleeping and gets some great desire and delight out of that? But when you have little babies... I've been on an aircraft before when the crustiest looking man when he saw a little child sitting in front of him playing with his parents and smiling and goo-gooing — his grumpy outlook changed.

It is amazing what children can do and the blessings they are. They truly are blessings from God and we parents need to realize we have a responsibility to treat them and handle them as blessings. Also, you children in here, not just the ones who were blessed, because they're not hearing too much of what I'm saying, but all the rest of the children in here, remember you're a child 'till you're twenty according to the Bible. All you children in here need to do what you can do to maintain that status as a blessing from God.

So I'd like to share some of that with you today, but the main focus is going to be five points on how to treat our children as blessings.

How are children blessings to us? First of all, they're gifts from God. Who's going to refuse a gift from the Creator of the universe? They are a replica of yourself. You want to know what you do and how you do? Look at your children. They are a replica of you. You want a mirror of what you're like, that 's what they do. That's what they exhibit. Do we realize that our children, every day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, eighteen years of their lives, you know what they see? They see a movie. The movie is about dads, moms, husbands, wives and family. Their entire concept of family is formed at home. I'll show you that in a few moments.

They can't help it. That's all they see day in and day out, their model of a mother, their model of a father, their model of a husband, their model of a wife and their model of how a family functions, is what they see every day of their lives. I'll read you a comment by Woodrow Wilson when he was the chancellor at Princeton and what he said about that. "They're a replica. Children are a joy; children are a blessing of joy. Children don't hold grudges."

I remember our daughters would come home and say, "I hate this girl, Thumbelina, or whatever her name was, Pascalina.

"And why do you hate Pascalina?

"Well she did this to me."

"Well, okay, you should get over that."

And the next day, "I had a really nice day today."

"Oh, who did you play with?"

"Pascalina."

"Well, why are you playing with Pascalina? You just told me yesterday you hated her."

"But I don't anymore."

Children have a wonderful way of working through things because they have a sense of joy; there's a verve and vigor for life. Children also are warm. They bring a warmth to us. Many a grandparent, many a parent just melts; and though we all know as parents what it's like to walk the floors when our children are sick. When you can't get them to blow their noses because they don't know how. When you know they're congested, and they have a fever, and you can't do much about it except try to comfort them. We all know the strain that we have, but we also know the warmth that they bring into our lives when they reach their little baby hand up and stroke our face. When they sit and look us right in the eye. When they're a little bit older and say, "Daddy, I love you; Mommy, I love you." They bring warmth into our lives.

And of course, they bring love. They climb up our lap, and they're not ashamed. You know, we, when we get to be older, we become ashamed. Kids aren't ashamed. They aren't ashamed to express themselves, come up and hug their mom by the leg, or they'll hug their dad. They're not ashamed. Kiss their dad. Hug their dad. They're not ashamed of that.

We also have in children; one blessing is that we get practice in leadership and as teachers, because you know what? Our children learn in the home. They learn from you. They not only learn from your example, which we'll talk about later, they also learn what you teach them, what you tell them. Do you know if you grew up in a home that told you that red was really yellow, and that's all you ever heard, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, you'd come in here, and you'd think that someone wearing red like Nina or others, you'd say, "That's yellow." Why? Because parents told you.

I asked for an evaluation one time of my graduate Spokesman's Club. I said, "Look, I'm always evaluating you. You hear me every Sabbath, you know, be honorable, but respectful, go ahead, let me have it."

The guy says, "How do you spell first."

I said, "Let's see, how do you pronounce first? Firsht."

He said, "Is there an sh in that?"

"Well, how do you say it? First. You say first, and I say firsht. Why do I say firsht?" I was sure the dictionary would endorse my meaning, my pronunciation, so I run to the dictionary after the club was over; after thanking them for giving me that astute comment and then I looked, and sure enough, does not give that ... Where on earth did I get this from? Why would I ever say firsht instead of first?

A couple of months later my parents visited, and we're sitting in the living room talking and we said, "Well, now what do we want to do today?"

My mom said, "Firsht," —

I said, "Say that again." I heard her say that all the time, and my dad, too, and when I told my dad he corrected it. He said first because he knew I was asking for a precise pronunciation; but he'd said that all my life, and that's what I heard, and that's what I said. It took a long time to change that, but I do say first now.

Children pick up from their parents. Parents teach their children; and we get practice at that, which is a blessing because we'll be teachers in the world tomorrow. Children carry on our name. Children carry on our name, and many times our young people, you know, they go forth and "Oh, are you so and so's son? Oh, are you so and so's daughter? Oh, that's wonderful! Nice to meet you." They carry on our name. They either bring good to it, or they bring evil to it, but they have the opportunity to carry on our name.

Children are a blessing because they're extra hands. Can you help me with this? Can you do that? Can you lift this up? Can you reach that? Can you do that? Can you get that? Can you go there? And they are; they're blessings. They help.

And they really are — the last blessing I can think of is; they are really our fruit. You know the Bible says: "By their fruit you shall know them. By their fruits you shall know them." Your children are your fruit. They're the fruit of your womb, ladies. They're the blessing from God, and what they say to others is what you are. What you're about. Oh, sure, children can go astray and I understand that completely, but overall they are your fruits, and it's really what we bequeath to the world. When I die I will leave no statue; nobody will erect a statue for me, but what I will leave are my two daughters and my grandchildren and my sons-in-law. And that will be the legacy that I pass on. By their fruit you shall know them. It is important that we realize these children are blessings of ours.

I want to read you a comment, and this is also introductory because I will get to the five points in a few moments. Five ways to treat our blessings. This original paper of a young lady, 1985 summer camp at Orr. The assignment was "write something that if you were a ruler of the world, what changes would you make?" I was teaching Christian Education in Orr at that time, and this young lady wrote an outstanding one, and I want to read it to you because it has to do with family, and what a young girl, she was about fourteen or fifteen, what she thought.

She says, "As an appointed ruler of the world I would like to make my first change in family relationships. I think if the bond between family members was a stronger, more loving one, some of the most major problems teens have today would be solved. Problems such as drugs, alcohol, smoking, premarital sex would gradually decrease. Teens would be able to turn to Mom and Dad rather than speed, beer, marijuana or 'their chick.'

"The reason I think this would work is because the family members could learn to grow closer and express more love toward each other. They could grow to trust each other. Once they began trusting each other husbands and wives would stay together and grow in love. Teens would ask for advice and go to their parents for help rather than to the drug dealers. Most teenagers feel home is like a prison cell, and their parents are the guards so they look for an escape. These escapes only lead to death and trouble.

"I know family life isn't the only reason teenagers have problems, but maybe if the family bond was stronger the problems could be solved before they get started. From experience I know parents have good advice and by following it, all of us could save ourselves a ton of problems."

How about well spoken for a fourteen or fifteen year old at that particular time? Well, let's take a look at five ways to treat our blessings, our children.

Number one, understanding. You see, when you enter the world of a child, you can't enter it as an adult in a sense of adult thinking. Let's look at I Corinthians 9:19, the Apostle Paul's approach. The Apostle Paul's approach was that we should become all things to others.

I Corinthians 9:19 — So he says, "For though I be free from all men," I'm using old King James and I'm modernizing it as I go along. "Yet have I made myself servantto (unto) all, that I might gain the more.

Verse 20 — "And (he said) to (unto) the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews." His whole purpose was trying to look at it from their perspective, and as parents too many times we expect of our children an adult response when they're really children. We expect them to have adult actions when they're really children, and it's really important to treat your blessing in this sense of understanding them and giving them understanding. Where are they at this particular stage? Know that boys like strength. Boys like power; girls like beauty, and those are generalizations, but that usually is so. I'll share with you a moment about understanding.

If understanding of your children is not found in the family, pray tell, where is it going to be found if it can't be found in the family, the safest place that a child knows.I Corinthians 13:11 — The Apostle Paul, in this love chapter, brings out a very interesting point. He said:

I Cor.13:11 — "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." It's important when we deal with our children that we meet them where they are, not where we expect them to be. It's important that we recognize where they are as young people, and that we join them there in thought and understanding. I don't mean you want to become a child yourself, but you want to think like they do. You want to reach them. You want to understand that at certain ages children have certain needs more than others, more than other times. Let me read to you a quote, a couple of quotes here about understanding.

This one comes from a book called The Family and I'll read this section under "Friendly Understanding."It says, "Another quality needed is unselfishness. People should learn from childhood that to be dubbed selfish is the worst possible thing. A self-centered person is conscious only of his unsatisfied needs whereas the unselfish member of the family expands the others to touch a life at a multitude of points. The home is a place for gladness. It isn't enough to feed and clothe the children and send them to school. They need some poetry in their lives, some inspiration. If parents have been effective in coping with the ills of the family, they're equally obligated to show joy on joyous occasions and to think smiling thoughts as a background for their actions."

Listen to this one. "There are few gifts that one person can give to another as rich as friendly understanding." And if we can't get understanding in the home, where can we get it? It's important that we understand them where they are, joining with them, reaching to them.

I have another quote here. This one says, "As a boy he worked long hours in a factory in Naples. He yearned to be a singer when, ten years old he took his first lesson in voice. 'You can't sing, you haven't any voice at all. Your voice sounds like the wind in the shutters,' said his teacher.

"The boy's mother, however had visions of greatness for her son. She believed that he had the talent to sing. She was very poor. Putting her arms around the boy, she encouragingly said, 'My boy, I am going to make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.' Her confidence in him, her understanding of him, where he was as a child at that time and constant encouragement paid off. The boy became one of the world's greatest singers, Enrico Caruso."

Fulton's mom, "He was only three years old when his father died."

To that, he said, "I grew up under the care of my blessed mother. She developed my early talent for drawing and encouraged me in my visits to the machine shops at town."

Robert was a poor pupil at school, however, and the teacher complained to his mother whereupon Mrs. Fulton replied proudly, 'My boy's head, Sir, is so full of original notions that there is no vacant chamber in which to store the contents of your musty books.' " (Laughing) He had so many good ideas he doesn't want your stuff from your musty books.

"I was only ten years old at that time, says Fulton and my mother seemed to be the only human being who understood my natural bend for mechanics." Robert Fulton, Inventor — steam engine, right? I believe that was the case.

So the first thing we can do is give our children understanding if we want to treat our blessings responsibly.

The second one is communication. Communication, by the way, is a two-way street, and what worked with five year olds doesn't work on teens. Do you realize that fewer than thirty minutes a day are spent with their children by moms? I mean, actually in contact with them; not just being in the same vicinity, not just being in the same city or the same house, but actual contact with their children, the average mother spends thirty minutes. The average dad fifteen minutes a day with their children. When you work with young people you have to give them time, and they have to know you, and they have to know you like them. They have to know you want to be with them. I'll read you a couple of stories in a moment.

Let's go to the Bible. Deuteronomy 4:9 — how many times have we heard the statement, "Children should be seen and not heard." I think that's a horrible statement. What, are children born without mouths and all of a sudden get them when they turn eighteen or nineteen? Why do they have mouths? But teaching children to be respectful doesn't mean they never talk. And how many times are children left out of conversations because they're told to be quiet, never speak? Deuteronomy 4:9— notice what God says here —

Deuteronomy 4:9 — "Only take heed," we have a responsibility to communicate, to teach, to reach out to, to share, "Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life: but teach them to your sons, and to your sons' sons." A responsibility to teach, a responsibility to communicate, to reach the mind and heart of a young person. Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 we read this:

Deuteronomy 6:6 — "And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart:

Verse 7 — And "You shall teach them diligently to (unto) your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up." You should be talking about God's way of life, talking about sound principles. That doesn't mean reading the Bible to them. I remember one lady, probably in my age range, was telling me, "Oh, you know, when I was a kid my mom read the Bible to me every day."

"What did she do?"

"Oh, she just took so many chapters and read them."

That's not a good way to teach your children. That's a good way to make them hate the Bible. You just sit 'em down and start reading, "he begot, he begot, they begot, she begot," and you know the kid just sits there and endures thirty minutes of being tongue lashed with scriptures instead of being taught from the scriptures. And parents have a responsibility to teach children principles, principles of life. Grandparents have a responsibility to pass on to their grandchildren principles of life, too. It's important that we teach. It's important that we communicate, that we share.

I want to read something to you. I probably read this one time regarding fathers, but I'd like to share it with you again. It's entitled, "A Son Gets an Hour a Day." A young, successful attorney said the greatest gift I ever received was a gift I got one Christmas when my dad gave me a small box. Inside was a note saying, "Son, this year I will give you 365 hours. An hour every day after dinner; it's yours. We'll talk about what you want to talk about. We'll go where you want to go. We'll play what you want to play. It will be your hour. My dad not only kept his promise, he said, but every year he renewed it. It's the greatest gift I ever had in my life. I am the result of his time."

How many of us are too busy to spend time with our children. I know in the ministry in the early years, ministers had to go here, there and everywhere. It's a wonder that any of us have children in the church, many disappointments. "Oh, we're going to go here — Oh, somebody calls, it's an emergency. I've gotta go take care of that. Sorry son, sorry daughter. Sorry I can't go with you. Sorry I can't do this. Oh, I wanted to buy you that but the store's closed because I was out visiting. I didn't get a chance. I'm sorry."

It's important that we reach our children, and it's important that we spend time with them because their view of God depends on their view of you 'cause you are virtually to them, as God when they're little. You provide for them; you love them; you teach them; you care for them; you direct their steps. It's important to take time to be with them, spend time with them.

I want to read you another one. It comes from Charlie Shed's book, Smart Dad's I Know, the title, and from the section "Time Together Alone."

"A dad in DesMoines, Iowa did an interesting thing last fall. He knocked on his daughter's door one night right after she had gone to bed. Then at her invitation he went in, sat down and made this little speech. 'Vicki, I want to apologize. I want you to know I'm sorry for a silly thing I've done. You're a senior in high school now, and all these years I've been saying that some day I'd take the time for us to get acquainted. So here you are with nine months left in our home and then you'll be going off to college and after that getting married, and the Lord only knows how far we'll be from each other.

" 'So now I want to ask if you'll do me a favor? Once every week in this senior year, I'd like to take you out alone for a meal when we have some time to talk together. I know you're busy lots of evenings, and I can't get away for lunch, but maybe we can get up early once a week, go out for breakfast, just the two of us, you and me.

" 'That's my invitation. Take some time to think it over, let me know how you feel.' So, she took some time, like thirty seconds, then she threw her arms around him. From there he said it's been so fine, what I found out is that this is one great kid. It really feels good to know maybe her mother and I didn't do so bad after all." Just giving her time, spending time together, because in order to communicate you must have time.

It also means you correct. Over in Proverbs 13:24 correction really hurts when it comes from somebody who loves them. More than it does just when you spank them. When correction comes to a child from someone that they know loves them, spends time with them, does things with them, listens to them, teaches them, it hurts more, and it should. They learn a lesson quickly.

Proverbs 13:24 — "He that spares his rod hates his son: but he that loves him chastens him many times." So it does take correction. It does takes a parent willing to do that, but also to praise. How many of us grew up with parents who said, "I'll tell you when you do wrong, but when you do right, that's expected of you." I hear that a lot as a counselor.

People don't get appreciated like they ought. It's important for us to reinforce our children. To look at them and tell them what a good job they've done. What a good effort, even if they didn't do a good job, because you know what, coupling the first one, understanding. You say, "Go, wash the car." Well, they may have forgotten to do the wheels; they may have forgotten to do the tires; they may have forgotten to do the windows. But you know what? It was a pretty good effort for the first time, wasn't it? Do you get mad because they didn't do it the way you did it? Maybe you didn't teach them to do it the way you did it. But if you did, and they didn't measure up, they're still a child. They're learning. Do we look for the good or do we only criticize the bad? Because if you only criticize the bad, your children are not going to want to be around you. They are blessings that they need to be taken care of. Proverbs 3:27 says:

Proverbs 3:27 — "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it." And children, I can tell you, children get their self-esteem from you parents. They learn to have worth and value from you as they're growing up.

Once you get older, then you can learn to say, "Well, I did a pretty good job at that." You can look back and say, "I'm pleased, I worked hard today." And you can give yourself some appreciation, but when you're little, always listening to mom and dad. You ever watch little kids when they do something? They want to look and see if mom and dad approve. Mom and dad say you did a good job. Mom and dad thought it was good.

It's important that you remember to compliment them. It's important that you compliment them on the effort. I've had my little grandkids bring me something, and ah, well, look at this, let's see. What is that? Hmmm. Looks like you really used yellow well there, and I couldn't tell what it was, and they'd tell me it was a chicken, and I'd really have to stretch my imagination to get a chicken into that picture, but had I said, "Oof, what is this mess?" You see, they worked hard, and they thought it was a chicken, and then I just dashed them. It's important for us to recognize effort and to encourage our children. You know what? It's never too late.

A quote from "The Family." "William James, eminent United States philosopher said,'deepest principle of human nature is the desire to be appreciated. A compliment is an effective way of raising a child's ego. An ego is not wrong unless it's out of line and out of sync, then it's wrong. It is one of the greatest stimulants to renewed effort. It is mean to be stingy with the praise in fear that it will turn a child's head.' "

G. B. Shaw wisely remarked that, "To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited."

One lady proudly told me she never gives compliments. At that moment my respect for that lady dropped a great deal.

"I don't give compliments."

I felt so sorry for her because you know what? The same lady received compliments and liked it, but would not give it. That is sad. If you treat your blessings that way, you are abusing them. I don't mean abuse in the sense of psychological abuse; you are not doing your job.

He goes on to say, "To withhold it all because the person might become conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditors should spend the money badly."

"I'm not gonna pay this debt because I don't know how he's going to spend this money. Well, you owe it to him. What he does with it afterward....

If I say you did a good job; if I compliment my children or my grandchildren and they get a big head that's their problem, but if I don't compliment them, that's my problem. I have done wrong, but it's important to look out and care. And you know what? It's never too late. It's never too late to help. I have one more comment that's from — I won't even go to that one. Let's move to number three.

Point number three is: Providing. And for this one I would like to share with you a basketball player named Alex English, his story. He said, "I want to tell you about a man who couldn't be at home with me as much as he wanted to when I was a little boy because he too worked hard to make a comfortable life for his family. Yet, I feel his influence to this day. This man was tall and strong; he drove a cement truck down in Columbia, South Carolina where I grew up. He worked long, hard hours all his life, maybe longer and harder than he had to.

"You see, he wanted to earn enough, not only to take care of our huge family; at times there were more than twelve of us, including brothers, sisters and cousins, but he also helped out anybody who needed it. If your great-grandmother had a grocery bill she couldn't pay, or if a friend of his needed help with the rent he was always there to pay the bill or to put his name on the line to borrow the money to help him. That's the way he was. People in need had to be helped, no question. He didn't ask questions; he didn't talk much at all, but you couldn't find a more generous, gentle man.

"Even though our house could get pretty crazy with all the kids, I never heard him raise his voice. The respect and affection that flowed out of him spoke louder than any lectures I could have heard on how people should act. I hope I can pass to his example of quiet love unto you, Son. One thing I can't give you is the real feeling of what it's like to grow up poor, because I did. There was a time when I was little that food was scarce in our home, when Thanksgiving dinner was saved by a bag of groceries from a charitable organization. Every day I'd scavenge for soda pop bottles so I could collect the two-cent deposit and maybe accumulate enough pennies to buy some extravagant treat like a chocolate milk or a honey bun."

But he goes on to say, "This man I'm telling you about never got to see me play basketball." Alex English played for the Denver Nuggets, a very good basketball player. "He never got to see me play. He was happy for me, pleased by whatever I accomplished, but because of his long hours at the wheel of a cement truck, he could rarely get away to see me play. I knew though, that he was proud of me."

And he goes on to talk about his dad. "One time he was planning a trip and he fell ill and he died." He said he died, and he passed on to his son. He said he died before you were born, but his name lives on with you, William Paul English, and I hope to make sure that his values live on, too." His values of hard work; his values of caring and providing, but not only do we need to provide physical things for our family, a roof over their head, food on the table, and you know, it's relative, brethren.

It's relative what we have. I remember living on a farm in Claysville, Pennsylvania. You would never want to live where I lived. But you know I was happy being there. We had what, three rooms? Our bedroom had a curve in the floor. So my brother Dave and I could get marbles and race them. I'd get my marbles, his marbles and we'd throw it up under the dresser, which had a little gap in it. Throw it up and then it would roll back down and come across the finish line. You would never want to live in that, it was half a converted farmhouse. If you saw it, you'd say, "What, you lived there?" But you know, I was happy, and I never went without food. Our parents never shared their burdens with us. They shared when my dad lost his job one time, and I went out and got a job, but never did I come home and say, "Do we have any food in the house? Oh, there's no food here for us."

You know, what you do for your children in providing, that's great! But also in the home is a quote from Ross Campbell on How to Really Love Your Teenager. "The first responsibility of parents is to provide a loving and happy home, a loving and happy home. The most important relationship in the home is the marriage bond, which takes primacy over the parent-child relationship. The security of a teenager and the quality of the parent-child bonding are largely dependent on the quality of marital bonding." So not only providing the food, not only providing the shelter, not only providing the clothing but also providing an atmosphere in which your children may grow up. I Timothy 5:8 — moving along just fine. Thank you for your prayers. My voice is okay.

I Timothy 5:8 — "But if any provide not for his own...." He's talking about widows here, but it applies to anybody that's our own. "But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." So God puts the burden of responsibility on parents to provide for their children; to provide the warmth, the love, the care, the concern. To also provide the food, the shelter, the clothing. I remember one man in cold, wintry Canada, who needed a new coat. His daughter needed a coat, too. Guess who got the coat? The daughter, because he cared. I think it was an outstanding example. I remember that he needed a new one. His daughter needed one, too. She got it. I think it's a real blessing for people to have that type of an attitude.

Luke 11— See, giving good gifts to our children, doing things for them, making memories with them, doing little things with our children is so important, spending time with them, caring about them, providing for their needs. But over in Luke 11:11-13 He said:

Luke 11:11 — "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?" Child comes in, "Can I have some toast?

"No, here's a rock, I hope you can chew on it a little while, probably take you a long time to eat it."

"...or if he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent?" He wants a fish. "Could I have some haddock?"

"Oh, no, here's a black snake; hope you can enjoy that."

Verse 13 — "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children..." You see what God assumes? That parents are going to bless their children. That parents are going to give them things, that they're going to provide for them, not only the necessities, but they're going to provide the extras as they are able. And remember, it doesn't cost much to make some popcorn in the evening and sit together and watch a decent movie, when you can find some. But it doesn't cost much to have some lemonade and popcorn and sit together and watch, or hot chocolate. What you do is, you form memories for your children. You form memories; you make a memory. God expects we will be providing for our children.

Let's look at number four, four out of the five is example. I want to read you Woodrow Wilson's comment. He said, "When Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University, he wasn't just a dean, he was president. He spoke these words to a parent's group. 'I get many letters from you parents about your children. You want to know why we people up here at Princeton can't make more out of them and do more for them. Let me tell you the reason we can't. It may shock you a little, but I'm not trying to be rude. The reason is that they are your sons, reared in your homes, blood of your blood, bone of your bone. They have absorbed the ideals of your homes. You have formed and fashioned them. They are your sons. In those malleable, moldable years of their lives, you have forever left your imprint upon them.' "

Our example means so much to our children. We can say one thing and be another, but if you aren't genuine, your children will grow up with a very difficult time understanding.

Here's another quote. This comes from Family Perspective, page 131 — "Children acquire expectations about family life by growing up in families. Childlessness, for example, cannot be socially reproduced through parent's socialization of children." Why? Well, because no children, there's nobody to model after. "The growing percentage of children who spend time in single-parent families implies that socialization favoring the conjugal system may be waning. As an increasing number of children spend less time in the traditional family units, they may be less inclined to create such units themselves, such that family decline also has an intergenerational dynamic."

So what they're saying is, "What children see, they see their families and they model after it. They can't help it."

I don't know how many people I've counseled for marriage. I've said, "If you don't talk to each other about what you like and don't like about your family, your family of origin, you will automatically do what they did in the same circumstances."

But if you talk about it, you say, "Well, my parents did this, they hopefully liked that; what do you think?"

"Well, Okay, let's do that." Or if you don't, you automatically bring it in unless you consciously think about it and make that switch. Children, seeing this movie day in and day out, can't help but follow those examples. They can't help it. It's too powerful.

I read to you about the descendants of Jonathan Edwards. He was the son of a godly home. His father was a preacher, before him his mother's father. Trace the history of the offspring of this godly man. More than four hundred of them have been traced. They include fourteen college presidents, a hundred professors. A hundred of them have been ministers of the gospel, missionaries and theological teachers, more than a hundred of them were lawyers and judges. Out of the whole number, sixty have been doctors and as many more authors of high rank and editors of journals. In fact, almost every conspicuous American industry has had as it's promoters one or more of the offspring of Edward's stock since the remote ancestor was married in the closing half of the seventeenth century. Why? Because he set an example for them.

Before I went to school, you know what they said? I had an older cousin, I had my brother, I had another cousin, and then I came, so I was number four in the same school. Antions make good grades. I dare not let them down. Their example was such that I had to measure up. That's the family. Antions play basketball. I played basketball. My older cousin, just older than I tried and he was not real agile, and he did not make the team, but three of us out of the four played basketball, and we made the team. So, why? Because of example. Example is powerful and example is important. Proverbs 17:6 — This is so important for you to be genuine and to set the right example for your children.

Proverbs 17:6 — "Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers." I was waiting, Thanksgiving time, my freshman year at Ambassador College for one of my distant cousins who lived in California to come pick me up and take me to their place for Thanksgiving. As I paced up and down the cross street where I was supposed to meet them, I was walking in the opposite direction when their car pulled up. And they stopped. They said, "Hi Gary" and I kind of recognized them. It had been years and years.

"How did you know it was me?" I said.

"We could tell by the way you walked. You walk just like your dad."

It is absolutely amazing. Remember the movie that they see? That's what they see. And I have known of kids who walked with a limp even though there's nothing physically wrong with them because their dad walks with a limp. Now you go figure, why? Because they see that. Children want to be like their parents. They want to follow their parents. They want a model to follow after. It's very important and encumbered upon us that we make sure we set that right example. Proverbs 20:7 —

Proverbs 20:7 — "The just man walks in his integrity: his children are blessed after him." Why would his children be blessed after him? Because they walk like their dad, who walks in integrity. They learn from what they see. They learn to be moms and dads and husbands and wives. They can't help it. I want to share with you what Douglas McArthur said. He said,

"Build me a son, O Lord, 
who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, 
and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; 
one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, 
and humble and gentle in victory.

"Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds;
...one who will know you (Thee) — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

"Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goals will be high; 
a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; 
... one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

"And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously.

Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

"Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, 'I have not lived in vain.' "

He said, "The example is important."

Number five — Treating your blessings. Number five is to love your children. Show them affection. Care about them and agree. Children need to be loved. Children want to be loved.

I can share with you what one a book entitled, Caring, Feeling and Touching brings out. Perhaps the most shocking and conclusive evidence of all comes from a study that showed that babies who were not routinely touched, handled and fondled when they were fed by their orphanage attendants simply withered up and died. It's called mirasmus. The children just die because they have no reason to live. Of course, for years it was assumed that such infants were the victims of some rare disease, but today no well-run orphanage or daycare center would think of putting a baby down with a bottle propped on a pillow or other substitute for holding them during the individual feeding.

You know what they do now, they rock; actually have little cribs that if you go into a preemie, where the preemies are kept, they actually have them rocking, some motion. They have little holes in there where the parents can put their fingers through and stroke, even though the child's trying to be protected from diseases, where parents can stroke them. It's important for them to be loved. It's important for them to feel that love and attention coming from people who are supposed to love them. I John 4:7-8 —

I John 4:7 — "Beloved, let us love one another:" And if you love one another as brethren shouldn't you love your children? God just assumes that. "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.

Verse 8 — "He that loves not does not know God; for God is love." I think it's interesting, verse 19 —

Parents say, "Well, if my child just loved me maybe a little bit more, maybe things would be better." You know who has to reach out first? I John 4:19 —

I John 4:19 — "We love him, because he first loved us." As parents, we need to reach out to our children and love them. Tell them we love them. Let them know we love them. Tell them often. That's like married couples, I say, "Okay dear, listen to me. I love you. Now, clearly, I love you. Now I'm not going to tell you the rest of our married life. You heard me and you believe that." Now how many women are happy with that? They love to hear "I love you" a lot. How much more for children do they need to hear that? It's vital. You always love; you may not always bless.

I remember one girl, one of the saddest situations. She said, "I just want my parents to love me; and another girl told me that in all of her life she never remembered being hugged by her dad, not once. I find that tragic. I find that tragic.

I want to share with you one other comment Ross Campbell brings out. He says, "As an infant, a child, he needs to be cuddled, hugged, fondled, hugged and kissed."

"Ooey, gooey love stuff," my eight-year-old son called it. This typical type of physical affection is crucial from birth until a boy reaches seven or eight years of age, and I mean crucial!

Research shows that girl infants less than twelve months old receive five times as much physical affection than boy infants. I'm convinced that this is why younger boys have many more problems than girls. Five to six times as many boys as girls are seen in psychiatric clinics around the country. As a boy grows and becomes older, his need for physical affection such as hugging and kissing lessens, but his need for physical contact does not. It goes on to talk about physical contact and eye contact are to be incorporated in all of our everyday dealings with our children. They should be natural, comfortable and not showy or overdone. A child growing up in a home where parents use eye and physical contact will be comfortable with themselves and other people.

You're teaching children to love people because they feel loved. Many serial killers, many psychopaths; you know why they kill people? It doesn't bother them. People are like toys because they felt no sense of bonding or love. It's vitally important that we take care of and treat our blessings in a proper way.

Now for children, I just have three points. Children, for you to remain blessings remember, God calls you blessings; you're a gift from God. For you to remain that,

1. You should really try to learn of God. Learn about God through your parents, through the church, and through the Bible. In your youth, remember God: Ecclesiastes 12:1, it talks about it. Remember, Jesus Christ learned of God at twelve years old. Remember that Timothy from a youth knew the scriptures, had heard the scriptures, had learned the scriptures. You can do it.

2. Be grateful. If you want to remain a blessing, be grateful to God for all the nice things that happen to you, and don't fail to tell your parents how much you appreciate them. Tell them, "thank you" when they do things for you. You know, clothes don't end up in our drawers automatically clean and folded. That's a surprise for some. Somebody had to do that, and when they end up in there did you ever think to thank your mom for doing your clothes? Did you ever think of thanking your mom for dinner? Well, it's expected, "They're supposed to feed me." But who had to do it? Did you ever thank her for doing the dishes? Spare her.

Anytime it was my turn to do the dishes, my brother went to college, my mom had two little kids, I ended up doing the dishes. Now the only way of getting out of it was to challenge my mom to a game of Ping-Pong. See, I taught her to play after my brother left and she became better defensively than me. The only way I could beat her was if I were offensively on, or if I just played her defensively, she'd win. So we'd go down, and we'd play. Best out of three, and best out of five, and seven until maybe I could win. Sometimes I won; sometimes I didn't, but she took the challenge, and we'd go down and play and I'll always have those memories. We still have the table, although neither of us plays anymore. Be grateful. Give thanks for what you have and what you receive. That's number two.

3. Dare to be different. Dare to be different. Be willing to stand up for your beliefs. As you go to school, young people, you can prove your beliefs. You don't have to hang your head for not keeping Halloween. You don't have to hang your head for not keeping Christmas and Easter. Your Bible says Passover. Your Bible says Tabernacles. Your Bible says Trumpets. You never have to hang your head. Can you dare to be different? Are you willing to stand against the crowd? If you are, then you're like David; you're like Daniel; you're like Jeremiah; you're like Mary, the mother of Jesus; you're like little Samuel who learned God's way of life. You're like Timothy. Most of all, you're like Jesus Christ who at twelve was found among doctors, questioning them and asking them back and forth. Stand up for your beliefs.

I'd like to read to you Parent's Prayer. I believe our men have either passed them out or they will. I'd like to read it in conclusion:

From Abigail Van Buren's column: "Oh, heavenly father, make me a better parent. Teach me to (better) understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting them or contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have them be to me. Forbid that I should ever laugh at their mistakes, or resort to shame or ridicule when they displease me. May I never punish them for my own selfish satisfaction or to show my power.

"Let me not tempt my child to lie or steal. And guide me hour by hour that I may demonstrate by all that I say and do that honesty produces happiness."

"Reduce, I pray, the meanness in me. And when I am out of sorts, help me, O Lord, to hold my tongue."

"May I ever be mindful that my children are children, and I should not expect of them the judgment of adults."

"Let me not rob them of the opportunity to wait on themselves and to make decisions."

"Bless me with the bigness to grant them all their reasonable requests, and the courage to deny them privileges I know will do them harm."

"Make me fair and just and kind. And fit me, O Lord, to be loved and respected and imitated by my children. Amen."

Children are blessings. Treat them as such. Children remain blessings. Parents, let's treat them with the respect and with the responsibility. Because remember, they are the future leaders of the world and the church and most of all, the kingdom of God.