THE SECRET PLACE
Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty
PART 52
WHEN FATHERS FAIL – NATIONS FALL III

The issue of discipline has been brought to light over the last 40 years and has been led by the devil’s protest against spanking. His strategy has been to persuade parents to “pet” the monster to keep it happy instead of actually teaching children – even if it hurts. It is true that a child does not enjoy the pain of punishment, but neither do they enjoy the absence of it when they know it is needed, especially when it is has been promised. Selah. Actually a child’s sense of justice actually gives them a happy “relief” when it has been carried out. Why is that? Because it has been created within the DNA of the human psyche to “respect” discipline. It is quite common to hear about children that have returned to thank their parents for the punishment they knew they needed. The problem with today’s fathers is a lack of love for God and of course this has distorted their understanding of “how” to love their family. The Bible teaches that a father who chooses NOT to punish his children with a firm hand of discipline does not really love them at all. “He that spares his rod HATES his child: but he that loves his children chastens them early.” (Proverbs 13:24) Buying expensive gifts for his family cannot be substituted for love. As we have said earlier, the greatest gift that a man can give to his family is to live Godly before them. His legacy is not what he bought them – but how he loved God in front of them. It is much easier to purchase gifts to “buy” their favor while living in sin – than to live holy and do what is right according to God’s plan. How many wealthy men have been hated by their wives and children because all they ever received was a materialistic, generic form of love? Men like this end up regretting their mistakes because they realize on their death bed how they failed to develop relationships and their life had no spiritual meaning.
Wives appreciate and respect the firm and stable leadership from a Godly husband. I sincerely believe that many women have drifted away from the love in their marriage as a result of a weak husband failing to lead them with strength and faith. We can clearly see the Lord’s highest blessing upon the family where the husband walks in anointed power and humility with God. If he assumes his rightful place of responsibility and authority and provides the moral and material resources his family needs, God’s hand will cover and reach into the deepest recesses of each members heart. Mealtimes will be a time of reverence, joy and orderliness. Playtime will be crowned with enthusiasm and happiness. Rest and sleep at night will be filled with safety and tranquility. Children will be eager to help with whatever needs to be done and family devotions will be the high point of nightly family fellowship. Does this scenario also seem outdated and a thing of the past? Again the only thing that has changed is the Christian father’s desire to listen and obey God. Selah. “Correct thy child and they shall give you rest; yea, they shall give delight unto your soul.” (Proverbs 29:17)
I realize there have been thousands of messages that have described the world’s depravity, but what exactly is being done to fight against the tragedy of the deterioration of the family? Millions of people go to church every week but how many are putting into practice what they are hearing? I wonder how many pastors are teaching the practical fundamentals about how to live? Or have they also bowed down to the pressures to compromise with the beast? In order to make church more popular, leaders are allowing the spirit of humanism to contaminate the place of worship by changing the service from God’s agenda to being more worldly “sensitive” to the seeker. As in the family, there must also be discipline within the church or the darkness of rebellion will offend God’s holiness and cause His power and anointing to find another resting place. The Lord will be respected and demands reverence from His people when they assemble in His Name.
Christian families are now being challenged from every facet of society and are bombarded with the darkness and temptations of sin – and the church is not exempt. So what can Godly husbands and fathers do to protect their families when even our public school system has become an enemy of the Christian belief system? Yes, I believe in home schooling but I am not saying this will prevent children from being influenced with secular humanism. Hopefully they will have a strong enough foundation in their spirit to be able to resist these heresies when they are faced with them. Even much of our news is directly from a demon possessed media that fashions their communication in a way that is designed to deceive. So are fathers to move their families into the forest or away from civilization in order to shelter their families from the presence of evil? I do not believe that is possible. Christian husbands and fathers just need to become more serious with their calling than they are with anything else in their life! Until Christian men see that LIVING for God in their everyday life is their highest priority – their families will not flow with the harmony and unity of the Holy Spirit. Fathers must be focused with what is important and let go of the distractions. Instead of spending all of their spare time with what they want to do, the thoughtful father needs to use these times as an opportunity to talk with their children and listen to them. Only when the doorways of trust and honesty are open can the sincere communication be shared and appreciated. This love bond with the fathers and their children is essential to imparting God’s truth – not only with words but especially with demonstration.
Have you ever noticed that in many cases, churches have more women in attendance than men and yet it is the MEN who need the instruction of God’s Word so they can LEAD their families. So why has family men lost interest in being Godly husbands and fathers especially in the last 60 years? I’m glad you asked. Most everything I write about considers God’s absolute truth as the best way and the most perfect choice. Yes, it is true that technically we can do whatever we want, but when our will is not God’s perfect will – it is wrong. The secular humanistic crowd becomes angry when they hear a view such as this because they believe that all “humans” should have the freedom to live their own dreams with admiration and respect. This idea of cultural evolution is NOT from God! In fact it is an insult in the face of the one who created the world and had a completely different plan for mankind. There has never been a time when the masses were holy but I believe there was a time when the average family at least knew what was right and wrong and tried to stand for what was right. Of course there has always been sin, the only difference between much of what is being thrown in our face now is that 60 years ago it was more hidden. However, (for those of us who are old enough) I want us to go back to the fifties and sixties and think about how drastically things have changed within the family. In the days of early television there were many shows that were relatively clean and innocent. For example shows like “lassie” and “Leave it to beaver” at least tried to present a normal view of what was right. I realize these were just some actors trying to portray the middle class average family but there were also a few simple realities that are worth considering. First we notice the Mothers did not hold a job outside the home. It is true that many women entered the workforce in the nineteen forties but much of that was because of World War II. My Mother was not employed when I was growing up and I cannot remember any of the Moms of my friends working either. It was a traditional idea that the wife was to stay home and take care of the house, cook the meals and raise the children. This concept was a “divine” idea because though it was a ton of work, the household became blessed from the wisdom and love of a mother that could take care of every little detail. The virtuous wife and mother (Proverbs 31) worked from dawn till dark to make sure everyone had everything they needed. The men brought home the finances, took care of the maintenance and within the perfect will of God they were the major disciplinarians and spiritual leaders. As God our heavenly Father is to be feared with reverential respect from us His children, the husband as the earthly father was also to be seen as a shadow “type” of shepherd by his wife and children. This is a spiritual mystery that reveals the Omniscience of God’s infinite wisdom that He invested in the blueprints of His creation. The Godly home of born-again followers of His Word are to be as individual holy temples within one glorious tabernacle. The faithfulness and obedience of the marriage and family is the glory of God on earth.
When fathers “lived” God’s perfect will within the family unit, the Holy Spirit could lead and guide the father into the anointing and blessings that are a result of obedience. The wife in turn would have a high respect and admiration for the power of God within her dedicated husband. This anointing produces an authority from God to walk in faith and confidence to speak and do what is right. When the Godly wife would sense that her husband was pure and sensitive to abiding in God’s presence she would be filled with joy in her heart and gratefulness to God in her soul with the fulfillment and contentment of security. This caused the woman to draw even closer to God as she has “seen” and been a witness to the miracle of God’s power to change a man into His image. The virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 does not just happen automatically but evolves over time when she lives under the influence of the Godly man. When she lovingly brings children into the world, she teaches them to cherish their father and respect his wisdom and understanding. It is this RESPECT that causes the children to listen to their father and this in turn allows their impressionable hearts and minds to be a plowed field of good soil where the seeds of God’s Word can be planted deep and watered often. Wives spoke highly of their husbands and were proud of them and likewise children admired their father and had a strong spiritual bond with them all their life.
There was a time when it was rare to hear children insulting their parents and mothers did not try to belittle their husbands in front of everyone or undermine their authority behind their back. As the intensity of discipline declined, fathers lost their respect within their own family! Thus, the foundation of God’s beautiful tabernacle began to crumble and the structure began to collapse. We have said that in the last 50 to 60 years, these cracks in the family foundation were noticed and in turn the churches of this nation also began to suffer loss. The assembly is only as strong as its individual members. Selah. The sin of rebellion has always been in the heart of the carnal nature as there have been several specific movements that influenced and fueled this end-time uprising against God’s absolute truth.
The equal rights movement might have liberated women to be able to have more freedoms but it also conceived a rebellious monster that changed the heart of the virtuous woman and changed her attitude into something God never intended.
The organization of Planned Parenthood was advertised as a way women could regulate their own choices about having children. However the abortion “slaughterhouse” movement was actually just another idea from Satan to destroy God’s creation, give humans the power to control death and deny the innocent the chance to live. No one has the choice to kill an innocent person. It is worth the time invested to read about Margaret Sanger and her philosophies. It is shocking to learn how deeply committed she was to the similar belief system that Hitler also embraced. This exposes our nation’s leaders and the cold hearted prejudice against minorities and the poverty stricken lower class. I wonder how many children were murdered that would have grown up to be presidents, inventors, military heroes, geniuses, teachers, all the gifts, talents and honorable men and women of God?
The rock and roll hippie movement seemed to be just about music but this was only a distraction to open the door to a hellish philosophy that if it feels good – do it! Human nature could not have said it better as it is always looking for an opportunity to be bad. The words in the music revealed the hearts intentions. The freedom to express what they felt was an aggressive form of rebellion, because it was exposing the darkness of the soul, the ugly truth of mankind’s depravity set to the beat of restlessness. Innocence was molested and purity was mocked. When drugs became easily accessible to the masses, the young people became like Eve and listened to Satan lie about how wonderful it would be to live in a utopian world. The devil said that drugs would not hurt anyone but rather allow them to “see” the real truth about love and peace. Now we “see” the millions of young people that have been destroyed by this illusion and the agony of shattered families. Like drugs, alcohol has ruined untold families and destroyed the relationships of parents and children. Adults use drugs and alcohol to drown out the voices of truth because they choose to be carnal. These addictions opened the portals to demonic strongholds of abuse and influenced adults to do things they would never dream of, while listening to the song, “I’m on the highway to hell”.
Of course with hallucinating drugs and the blaring of hell’s music, the doors to premarital sex were not only opened but rather were broken down completely. The teachings of purity and honoring the marriage were ignored and the masses have not looked back. As leaven affects the entire lump, so does a few rebellious people when mixed in with the masses of society. People are like sheep and have a tendency to follow others very easily. What started out as a few delinquents became a movement that grew into an epidemic all because the normal young person wanted to seem “cool” or a part of a new generation of thinking. Everyone wants to feel accepted with the crowd and it will be no different when anti-christ takes control of the world. This freedom to have sex with anyone unleashed the demons of lust and fueled the pornography industry which saw the television as a way to tease the eyes and introduce their sensuous dreams and perverted fantasies.
There is no argument to how severely the television has corrupted the minds of the masses. The arousal of the carnal beast planted the seeds of darkness and eventually grew a harvest of calloused barbarians. Fathers became more interested in the lust for women that wore tight revealing outfits than to call family devotions in the evenings. The guilt of sin in their conscience caused fathers to step away from the sanctification and holiness of being separate from the world. How could fathers pray with their children and talk about God’s Word at night, while having lustful thoughts all during the day? Satan knew that if he could turn the hearts of the fathers away from living with a clean heart, he could dissolve the blessings of the family. This in turn would have a negative impact on the church by filling the pews with hypocrites that were going through the motions of empty religion. God was trying to guide them but many chose to satisfy their flesh instead which caused many families to become dysfunctional. The Lord commanded fathers to help steer the family “ship” but many never kept their eyes on the “lighthouse.” Selah.