Hear O (American Men)! Series

Father’s Day

Hear O (American Men)!

Deuteronomy 6:1-9; 5:7-21

June 17, 2001

Intro:

[Are Fathers Necessary?, Citation: Charles Colson, How Now Shall We Live (Tyndale, 1999)]

In How Now Shall We Live, Chuck Colson notes the disturbing realities that plague children who grow up without a father:

Children in single-parent families are five times more likely to be poor, and half the single mothers in the United States live below the poverty line.

Children of divorce suffer intense grief, which often lasts for many years.

Even as young adults, they are nearly twice as likely to require psychological help.

Children from disrupted families have more academic and behavioral problems at school and are nearly twice as likely to drop out of high school.

Girls in single-parent homes are at a much greater risk for precocious sexuality and are two and a half times more likely to have a child out of wedlock.

Crime and substance abuse are strongly linked to fatherless households.

Statistics show that 60 percent of rapists grew up in fatherless homes, as did 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of all long-term prison inmates.

In fact, most of the social pathologies disrupting American life today can be traced to fatherlessness.

B. Deuteronomy 6:1-2, These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.

1. Moses told the Israelites that they should be careful to obey the commands of God after they cross over the Jordan and take up residence in the Promised Land.

2. Moses said that the children should be taught to obey God’s commands as well.

C. Deuteronomy 6:3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

1. Moses calls them to attention: "Hear, O Israel."

2. Today I would say, "Hear, O American men and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land that is richly blessed!"

3. What Moses is about to say, every man in America needs to hear!

4. Every woman in America needs to listen up.

5. God is going to say some very important things through Moses that all of Israel needed to hear and all of America needs to hear.

6. Whether your a parent or a grand-parent or a great, grand-parent, a coach, a youth leader, a scout leader, or a next door neighbor, you have some children that you can influence.

7. But the Bible especially speaks of dads as being the primary person responsible for child-rearing.

8. The Bible says that the Dad is the head of the household.

9. And Satan has certainly done his best to convince men that spiritual training should be left to the mothers, and children have grown up thinking that religion is for women and children.

10. And if I could only fix one thing in America it would be to restore the Bible’s role of the Father in the home and that would go 98% of the way in fixing the problems that America has today.

11. I believe that if men would be dads and men would be husbands the way the Bible teaches, America would be in a lot better shape!

12. So on this Father’s Day I want to say, "Hear O American Men!"

13. First Moses says…

I. Be sold out to God ourselves!

Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

A. Now, one might be inclined to think that if God wanted to teach us how to raise upright children, he would start out with some practical, how-to information.

1. But no, God (through Moses) first said that we should love the Lord our God OURSELVES with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength.

2. Now why do you suppose that is the place that God says to start in child rearing?

3. Let me ask you this: How many things do you actually remember your father saying and how many things do you remember him doing?

4. Did your father teach you more by what he said or by what he did?