John Hagee - Portrait Of A Father
Our nation is in great trouble right now. We have anarchy in the streets. We have a shadow government trying to pull down the established government. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken. And the traditional family, if it passes off the stage of history, the nation that you know now will never exist. The survival of America depends on the survival of the traditional family. Genesis 2:24 and 25, read it with me. "Therefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed". I started to name this sermon "Naked and not ashamed," but I didn't think perhaps some would understand that it's all together. Let's pray.
Father God, thank you for the joy of being in God's house. Thank you that God the Father has placed a blueprint for the family in the Word of God. Let us see it and let us leave here and practice it, in Jesus' name. And all of God's children said, praise the Lord.
You may be seated. Is there a family in your house? A family is not a place where there's a perfect marriage, there are perfect people. There's no such thing as a perfect marriage. Begin with this basic thought: who is the architect of the family? Listen to me, young people. The architect of the American family is not the socialist professor, who has taught you or is teaching you at America's colleges and universities, not at all. It is not the federal government. The federal government, since Lyndon Baines Johnson with his war on poverty, has done more to destroy the U.S. Family than an invading army.
The architect of the family is not the church, because some of you are going to churches that no longer believe the Bible, no longer teach nor practice the Bible. You might as well be in a country club somewhere. The fact is the architect of the human family is God Almighty. He created Adam and eve as man and woman, as the eternal pattern for the family. And that pattern has never changed. Any other pattern is rebellion against the word and the will of God. Hear that very clearly. I don't care what social morays are. I don't care what the trend happens to be. I don't care what the mood of the nations happen to be.
Two homosexuals living together will never be a family, not with God Almighty and not with Bible-believing Christians. If you believe that God will approve of a homosexual society, I refer you to God's urban renewal project in Sodom and Gomorrah. I refer you also to saint Paul in Romans 1:26 through 32, who described that kind of conduct, and ended his theological treatise by saying, "Those who practice such things are deserving of death". Those are the words of saint Paul. A lot of you have his name on your church. You have no idea what he taught.
What is the purpose of the family? The purpose of the family is given in Genesis 1:28, "To be fruitful and multiply". Say that with me, to be fruitful and multiply. To have children, not cats and dogs. We live in a nation more concerned about animals than people. You see television programs about adopting a dog. But you don't see anything about adopting children. You see planned parenthood selling baby body parts over the television. We are executing, in our abortion clinics, thousands of children a day. And now, it's just become an old lysis. I assure you that in the courts of heaven, this is murder in the first degree.
The point is to multiply. "Be fruitful and multiply". Say that with me, multiply. "Multiply" does not mean "Replace". If you are married and you have two people, you have just replaced two people. You haven't multiplied until you've had the third one. Now you've multiplied. I see some of you now tucking your head here. Let me say this to you: this is a fact, sociological fact. Any nation that produces 2.0 or less becomes extinct. That is a fact of life. What is a family? There's a family of God that's in the Bible. And I assure you that we are a family. We are blood relatives by virtue of the cross of Jesus Christ. We were reborn into an eternal family. We are brothers and sisters, and we have the mission to care one for the other.
Jesus said, "This last commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you". Can I get a witness here? And then there's the traditional family of father, mother, and their children. And let me tell you it is the only family God will recognize. He has created male and female and that's not going to change. He is the potter: we are the clay. The clay does not tell the potter what I want to be. Clay does not talk: it is only formed. You are a creation of God the Father, who is our potter. He is the shepherd: we are the sheep. We follow him. He does not follow us.
What is a family? A family is the picture of a mother cooking dinner for someone she loves. It is the laugh of a baby. It is the strength of the father. It is the warmth of loving hearts. It is light from happy eyes. It is kindness on parade. It is loyalty one for the other. It is covenant love. Home is the first school and the first church I ever attended. I learned from my parents what was right and what was wrong.
Family is where you go for comfort. When you're hungry, when you're sick, when the world has beaten you up, they can wrap their arms around you, and hug you, and make the world go away. When you have been battered and bruised by the world, family will open the very door of heaven and will heal you. They will anoint your wounds with the oil of gladness. They will wrap their arms around you and make you feel like you are the most important person in all of the world.
Family is where joy is shared and sorrows is eased. They will be glad of your success. They will be delighted that you received the promotion at the job. They will be proud of you making the honor roll at school. But they will buy every newspaper on the rack because you were the football hero, or you made the honor roll, or you were the businessman of the year, or you were the mother of the year.
Family is where fathers and mothers are respected and they are loved. They are never addressed as "Ole man" and "Ole lady". If you have kids or grand kids using that kind of trash talk, you get it stopped and get it stopped now. The names of your parents are used in hushed tones of respect and reverence. With advancing years, they're not shuffled off to the sidelines to be ignored. Whether they are in a wheelchair, or in a recliner, or too feeble to sit up straightly, they are there because they belong to be there. They are your flesh and blood. They are your family.
Family is where children are wanted and considered a blessing of the Lord. They're not looked upon as an inconvenience to my career. They are angels unaware that God has given to you for a few days until they are released into society to make America a great nation again. Or if you haven't taught them well, they will be the cause of us losing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now let's turn the focus to the father, the portrait of the father. What does God expect of a father? God expects an earthly father to reflect him.
So take it from the top: God is love. He expects fathers to love their wives even as Christ loved the church. That's in the Bible, by the way. There's not a verse in the Bible that says to treat your wife like the oldest child in your family. That's not there. You love your wife as Christ loved the church. He loved the church when the church didn't even deserve to be loved. "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it". I continue, "So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself".
Think about that. God is a provider. He's Jehovah Jireh. And he expects the earthly father to be a provider. The Bible says, "He that provides not for his own is worse than an infidel". In the Bible, an infidel is the lowest of the low. That means if you do not provide for your own, you're lower than the lowest. America is saturated with deadbeat dads, who have children with live-in lovers and wife of the week, and leave the single mother stranded and alone to care for that baby. If this describes you, grow up! Grow up! Being born a male is a chance, but being a man is a choice. And you need to look yourself in the mirror and recognize that we need to send a clear message to the deadbeat dads of this nation. Provide for the needs of the mother and the child that you produced, or go to jail and stay there until the debt is completely resolved.
Freedom is not the right to do as you please. Freedom is the right to do as you ought. God the Father is Jehovah Shammah. That means "God is there". And therefore, God expects the father to be present to his family. The American home suffers from the phantom father. Where is he? Mona charen writes, and I found this in my research for this sermon series, "Sixty percent of rapists, 72% of adolescent murderers, 70% of long-term prison inmates, grew up in fatherless homes". Seventy percent, 72% of murderers, 70% of long-term prison inmates.
Now follow this: according to the national census bureau, 80% of American children now living in homes, live in homes without their biological father. Eighty percent do not know, or have fellowship with, or guidance from, their biological father. Last year, four out of ten children were born to unwed mothers. That doesn't count the mothers that went to the abortion mills. We are building sanctuary of hope that is going to be a world class orphanage and home for children, and where young mothers can go to give the child life. The sanctuary of hope is a life sentence. Planned parenthood is a death sentence. We are giving an answer. May God give us all of the resources necessary to build this fabulous facility for the young women of America.
What does God think about the absentee father? He addressed the issue in Malachi 4:6. He said, "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children". Say that with me, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. But listen: that's where we always stop with that verse. But there are two more words. "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children or else". "Or else," what? "Or else I will come and strike that nation with a curse". God will send judgment to the nation for the moral failure of fathers to lead, to love, and to provide for their children.
To the fathers of this nation, I'm saying to you, go home, get yourself a job, love your wife, love your children, get your son out of that gang, get your daughter out of that gang, get them out of any kind of culture that manipulates and that's driven by the spirit of rebellion. You are the father. You are the authority over that child. That child does not belong to the state. That child does not belong to the school. God gave you that child. You lead that child. You love that child. You provide for that child! That's God's pattern for you as a father. There are three basic functions of the father in scripture, as priest, as prophet, as king. As priest, a father represents his family to God.
In Exodus 12, there's the passover. The father was responsible to put blood over the doorpost. Without that blood over the doorpost, the death angel would take the life of the firstborn. The point is this: the safety of the family in the house depended on what the father did. If the father failed, the family was destroyed by the death angel. You say, "Well what does that have to do with America"? Let me tell you the death angel is flying over this nation, right now, killing our children. The drug culture, the heroin addiction alone, according to the FBI, is a national crisis.
Gangs are killing hundreds of children every week in the streets of this nation. You are looking at the headlines of what looks like anarchy happening in this nation. Children are being slaughtered in the planned parenthood abortions. There's sexual slavery where organized crime snatches a girl off the street, and they never see civilization again. Our children are an endangered species. I want you to hear this. The children of America are an endangered species. Why? Because they are not protected by their father. They are left exposed. Fathers of America, go home, be responsible, raise your children in the fear and the admonition of the Lord! Can I get a witness here?
As the prophet, he represents God to his family. Noah, in Genesis 6, found favor in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and your family". God told Noah, the father. God told him that a flood was coming, the problem. God told him how to escape the flood with the ark, the solution. The family would be saved. Again the message is, the duty of the father was to make the provision for the escape for that which was not seen. Hebrews 11:7 says that in one verse, "By faith, Noah being warned by God of things not yet seen", hear those words, "Not yet seen"? "Prepared an ark for the salvation of his household".
There are things coming to America not yet seen that are going to shake this nation to the core. You need to get your family together. You, as a unit, become tight and inseparable, because that's God's will for your life. There will come a time in America when your life or the life of your family will depend on the leadership of the father. You are the priest and the prophet of your house. Deuteronomy 6, "Behold, o Israel, the Lord our God is one". That means you teach your children the Word of God. Saturate your children with the Word of God.
Ephesians 6:4, "You fathers, provoke not your children. But you train them in the fear and the admonition of the Lord". Train them! That word "Train" is a Greek word "Gymnat" from which we get "Gymnasium". As a coach shows a boy how to shoot a basketball over and over, or hit a baseball over and over, so you, father, are to train your children over and over and over, reading the Word of God with them each night, praying for them each night, so they learn that God is important to the father.
If all you do is send them to the house of God with their mother, they'll think faith in God is a sissy thing. They want to be like the father. You, father, you lead them! You show them! You love them! You impart the Word of God to them! Then you won't be snatching them out of the jailhouse when they're 16 years old. It's a responsibility that's yours.
Lastly, the third function of the father is king. The king has authority. I'm going to say this very clearly. Everything God establishes functions on spiritual authority. The sun, the moon, and the stars function by the authority of God. The home functions under the authority of God. The government functions, according to the book of Romans, under the authority of God. The church functions under spiritual authority. The father is the authority in the home. He is the decision maker. It doesn't mean that the wife shouldn't be consulted. But someone has to be the decision maker. Someone has to say, "Yes" and "No". God made your husband the leader. Let him lead.
Acts 16:31, Paul and Silas are in jail. They're singing after having been beaten. And God sends the angels down to dance around that jail, and there's an earthquake. And they start walking out of the jail. And the jailer comes, and says, "What must I do to be saved"? Because I assure you, under Roman law, if they walked out, he went into jail the next day and served out their term. "What must I do to be saved"? Listen to what Paul says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and your household". The point: the verse was given to the father so that the household could be saved.
That night, the prison warden went home. He got his kids around him, and he shared the testimony of this jailbreak that happened by the supernatural power of God. He told them about the power of a God that was great enough to shake the earth. That night, that family was saved. That whole family, that night, went to bed redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, saved because this message came to the father, and the father has given it.
Is your household saved? Are your children saved? Are your grandchildren saved? Is there a family in your house? Or are you feuding and fighting all of the time and divided with bitterness, and bickering, and jealousy, and animosity? Stop it! Stop it, in Jesus' name! Start acting like the Christian you're supposed to be. Let God rule your life. Let him rule your mind! Let him rule your mouth! Let him rule your marriage! He is Lord of all! Hallelujah to the Lamb of God! Give him praise in the house.
Can we stand? How many of you are in this room, say, pastor, I want God to restore my family. I want God to heal our wounds. I want the bitterness and the memories to go away. And I want the love of God to bring us together again. If that describes you, lift your hands where you are. How many of you are in this room, say, as the father, I'm not the spiritual leader. I've delegated that to my wife or to the preacher, to the church. But I'm going home today to be the spiritual leader of my children.
If that's true of you, slip your hand up where you are. Thank you. As Noah prepared his family for the coming storm, so I want you to go home and get your family tight together where the love of God, the joy and the peace of the Holy Spirit, represent your life. And that's what you call "Heaven on earth". I want you to pray this prayer with me all together.
Heavenly Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I come to you today and ask you to heal the wounds of our family. Take from us the bitterness, the anger, the separation, the evil memories, and heal us. Bring us together again with a freshness, a divine and supernatural love that will endure the coming storms. Fathers, I want you to pray this prayer with me. Father God, I'm going to leave this building today to be the spiritual leader of my family, to be the prophet, the priest and king that God has asked me to be, in Jesus' name. Amen.