Solid Foundation For Good Homes

Introduction

Much and more so than usual because yesterday about noon I was wondering if I was gonna make it here. But I’m glad we’re here and I’m glad you’re here. And we’re thankful to have in our audience several who are visiting. We especially welcome you and we hope you can and will come and be with us from time to time. We have had a Arlene and I have had a wonderful week in East Texas from a lot of different points of view. First of all, the fact that we were able to stay in the home with our my parents in Nacky’s. Last Sunday we were able to see at least two of our children. Our son John drove up from Houston, and Ann and Tip drove down from the Fort Worth area.

And by the way, we gave Ann all the hugs and kisses that you sent her, and she bids you each a hello and promises she’s gonna come home just as soon as she can for a weekend. But not only did we have a wonderful time from just a physical, fleshly, social point of view, being back in a town where I grew up and seeing a lot of old, old friends as well. But also we just had a very good feast, I believe, in a spiritual way. In our gospel meeting, we just had visitors at every service. We had three who responded to the invitation, that is, in a public way. One was restored and two were baptized, and I’m just certain by the comments that there are yet others who are soon to obey the gospel.

The church was well prepared. There were many who came. I don’t think there was a service, but that we had non-Christians who were present. I don’t know the number altogether who came, but quite a few throughout the week. The attendance was good. The members themselves were all involved. We had morning services Monday through Friday, and there was an average of 85 at the services throughout the week. And I said, you know, most cities you go to, and we don’t even have morning services anymore because everybody’s working, or we’re just unable to come. But we had, and I don’t know the average at night, but well over 200 every service. And so from that point of view, I say that just first of all to say thank you for making it possible that I could go and be a part and be used by the Lord and in that work.

And also to say with our own meeting that’s coming up, I hope we’ll be just as prepared. And we can say some of the same things two weeks from today when ours is over. That we don’t wait till about Tuesday or Wednesday and say, Oh, this is time for the meeting, and I believe I’ll go tonight. But come next Sunday morning, everybody in this place and bring a visitor with you. And you make preparations and plans throughout the whole week that that’s the way it’s going to be. We can use this time really in a very fine way. We we’re we’re blessed with having Brother Mark Mosley come our way, and the most capable speaker, and and he’ll be ready, I’m sure, and we need to be ready too.

So let’s be praying for that meeting and being working diligently throughout this week in preparation. Another thing that I wanted to say, and that is that in our services tonight, we’re going to have a period of singing of praises under the Lord. Normally we do that on the first Sunday night of the month. That was last Sunday night, and so before I left, even it was decided that well, we’ll just wait, and because we already had a speaker engaged, and I appreciate these men who preached last week, uh, Brother Mark and Brother Ralph, and also Brother Max for teaching my classes in my absence. But since that had already been scheduled, we decided, well, we’ll go ahead and have singing, we’ll do it tonight. We’re going to do it a little bit differently from what we’ve done in the last year or year and a half, because uh we’ve been having a theme carried throughout, and I’ve been selecting the songs and getting different ones to lead the singing.

It was suggested in our general business meeting that we have a singing like we used to do, where everybody who wanted to lead a song will pick a song and lead one. So I just simply say now to all the men in the congregation, if you’d like to lead a song, pick your song and be ready. Steve Miller’s going to take charge tonight, and let’s all come together and use this time as we sing praises unto the Lord and we’ll be built up during that period of time. I hope to see you at 6 o’clock tonight. Now, this morning, I would like to go back to Ephesians chapter 6. I say go back to it because for the last several weeks at least that I was here, I’ve been preaching concerning lessons concerning the solid foundation for a good home.

And this is going to be the last in that series of lessons. But in our last lesson, we talked about Ephesians 6 verses 1 through 3, where the apostles said, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. So in that lesson, we talked about the responsibility of children in obeying their parents and in honoring their parents. But this morning now we want to go to verse 4, where we read about the role of parents. And in just a matter of a few words, actually, in Ephesians 6, one verse, in fact, here, he sets forth quite a responsibility.

Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. But bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. A Chinese proverb says, one generation plants the trees, and the next gets the shade. That really, in a figure, describes the responsibility of parents in bringing up their children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. What kind of tree planting are you doing in your home to provide the shade for your grandchildren? What kind of shelter will our children have from the heat of an evil and sinful generation? We cannot sit by idly and just expect it to happen that our children are going to know the Lord and they’re going to be able to make the right choices and they’re going to have strong, healthy families themselves, and they’re going to make the kind of decisions to be godly people, making good neighbors and good citizens.

It doesn’t just happen by chance.

1. Submitting Yourselves One to Another

Children need direction. God has given parents that responsibility and in fact that opportunity to guide, to direct, and to bring them up in a way that will protect them from the heat of the evil son. And a way that will guard them in making the right choices to find true happiness in this life, like God intended. From the very outset of these lessons, though, I pointed out back in Ephesians 5 and verse 21, a theme, you might say, an underlying theme. Where the apostle says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. And you may recall I pointed out then that while the next verse says, wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as of the Lord, that the theme in this text is not just directed to wives.

But really he’s setting forth a responsibility or an attitude of Christians one to another. And he’s making an application in the family. All of us have a responsibility of submission, of lining ourselves up under one another, recognizing the needs and the wants of the other, and yielding ourselves to provide for them. Even as Philippians chapter 2 speaks about Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us. And it teaches that we ought to have the same mind in ourselves. We’ll not look on our own things, but on the things of others. We are submitting one to another. Now, with that thought in mind, of course, wives will submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. But also husbands will submit to their wives. When a husband loves his wife as himself, he’ll not mistreat her or order her around doing things that he would not do himself or want to be ordered himself to do.

He’s considerate of her, for he loves her as his own body. And so there’s a sense in which husbands submit to wives, just as wives submit to husbands. But then into our chapter 6, there’s certainly a way in which children submit to parents. They are to obey parents, and that’s a stronger word. Children literally have a command to respond to whatever the parent orders or commands. Just as the same word is found in verse 5 about servants being obedient to their masters. But also, there’s an attitude here. Children ought to want to submit to their parents. This is right. And servants would submit unto their masters even as they would unto the Lord. They work heartily recognizing as the Lord who’s their real master. I think that’s the underlying fault, even through that relationship of master, of servants to masters.

But it’s turned around, too, and there’s a sense in which fathers submit to children and masters submit to servants. For he says in chapter 6 and verse 9, masters will forbear threatening because they know they too will have a master in heaven to judge them one day. And though it, therefore, the thought here is that, masters, you treat your servants like you’d want to be treated for God. There’s no respect of persons with God. Now, if a master can yield himself and treat his servant in a proper way, not just as one who is a tyrant, but rather treating a servant with some thoughtfulness and care and concern, with that same idea in mind, so are parents to be submitting to their children. There’s a sense in which fathers in the care of their children will submit to them.

2. Children Will Bring Either Joy or Grief

Parents have a responsibility to learn something about the disposition of the child. No two children are alike. As a parent of four children, I never cease to be amazed at how different they can be in their disposition, one from the other. Yet of the same parents. You say the same genes in them. And yet, there’s a difference. What one might take to discipline, the other would not respond in the same way. And so there is a responsibility of parents to learn something about the differences in their children, and also to recognize what it is that the children would need in order to guide them, to bring them up in the right way. Children will bring either joy or grief to their parents. Throughout the book of Proverbs, that’s so often illustrated.

In fact, the effects of a disobedient child are described in several different of the Proverbs. And what we do as parents will will largely determine whether we’re going to have joy from our children or whether we’re going to have grief and sorrow from our children. In Proverbs chapter 10 and in verse 1, for example, the Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. You let a child who becomes disobedient, foolish is the word used here. He’s a grief to his mother. That’s the same thought in chapter 17 and in verse 25. A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bear him. What a sad, what a sad parent it is who can say, you know, my children have become rebellious.

And there are some parents, many who grieve because their children do not respond to them. It’s just like words going through one ear and out the other, as we sometimes say. Children do not heed their parents. Well, if you wait till the child is a teenager and start in trying to train him, you’re not going to have any success with him. And there are children who become a grief to their mother and to their father. In chapter 15 and in verse 5, in fact, the disobedient child is a rebel to his father. It says, A fool despises his father’s instruction. He’s a fool. Now he may despise it, and there are many sons who do despise. As a rebel, they’re really foolish. In chapter 17 of Proverbs and in verse 21.

He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow. And the father of a fool hath no joy. Here you’ve got a child who does not regard your words. He’s a rebel. But he says it’s to your sorrow, and there is no joy. Over in verse 25 of Proverbs 17, a foolish son is a grief to his father. The passage we read a moment ago. What a sad thing for a father. In fact, a disaster, you might say, in Proverbs 19 and in verse 13. A foolish son is the calamity of his father. He really is a disgrace to his father and his mother. Verse 26 of Proverbs 19. He that wasteth his father and chaseth away his mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach.

Causeth shame. He’s a user of his parents, even.

He killed his mother. Children will sometimes use their parents. Some may not murder their parents, but they use them. They don’t love their parents, and they misuse or abuse even their parents. In Proverbs 28 and verse 24, whoso robbeth his father or his mother and saith it is no transgression, the same as the companion of a destroyer. But you may sum it all up in Proverbs 29 and verse 15. Where there he says, the rod and reproof give wisdom. The rod is what you do, reproof is what you say. The rod and reproof will give wisdom. But look at the other part of that proverb. A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. A child left to himself. You see, there’s more to parenthood than just bringing children into the world.

We cannot just bring one into the world and leave him to himself, or else we’re going to suffer the grief, the sorrow, the disgrace that so many of these proverbs speak about. On the other hand, the proverbs not only speak about that side of children, there’s so many proverbs that speak about the gladness that they bring into your heart. Even as we’ve already read from chapter 10 and verse 1, a wise son maketh what? A glad father. Or in chapter 15 and in verse 20, a wise son maketh a glad father. In chapter 29 and verse 17, he is the delight of thy soul. Correct thy son, he shall give thee rest, yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. What a blessing. Children can be.

One of the great passages of the Bible in Psalm 127, in fact, verses 3 to 4, 3 to 5. It says, Lo children are an heritage of the Lord. And the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Children can be a joy. God intended for them to be. A pleasure, something that’ll bring gladness, something that’ll bring happiness and delight to the family. Oh, I feel genuine sorrow for those people who want children but cannot produce them. I really do. And then on the other hand, I have to tell you, I feel condemned, contempt for those who do produce children and do not want them. And too many people in our generation fall into that category. That’s why we have the high rate of abortion these days. And not only some who have aborted, there are others who have abandoned. It gets me at some people who would say, oh, abortion, isn’t that terrible? And yet, as parents, they’ve abandoned their children. They haven’t raised their children.

3. You’re Bringing an Eternal Soul

And they’re going to have grief. They’re going to have sorrow. The responsibility of parenthood becomes even all the more significant when we consider the fact that what we bring into this world is not just a flesh and blood human being going to live for a few years. You’re bringing a soul, an eternal soul. And one who, though the flesh may die, that spirit will return unto God. And the destiny of that soul is in your hand. And you know, when you think about it that way, parents, it really puts a different point of view, doesn’t it? That I have a child here. Indeed, I cannot live his life. But what I do in the few years, like taking a small tree and bending that twig and making it grow in the right direction, so it is I take that child and I help the child learn how to make the right choices.

Not only that it may have happiness here in a successful life in this world, but eternally. What I’m going to say this morning is going to extend much more in the world about things about the world to come than in this life. I’m convinced that most of us as parents, at least, who would come to a service like this, we are concerned about getting the right education. And we’re concerned, and we do a lot of talking, whether, you know, we go to the effort of homeschooling or whether we send them to the right school, or maybe choose a private school, and we want to see that they have a good education. We why if they bring home failing grades, we we we might even restrict them.

They can’t they can’t go out, they can’t have dates, they can’t do until they get their grades up. And we we go to a lot of effort about seeing that they have some kind of secular education. We want them to be successful, don’t we? But how do you measure success just because they have a college degree or even a high school diploma and go out and get a good paying job? Is that all there is? What if they died the next year? I heard this week about a man whose son had just finished medical school, promising career, killed in a car wreck. Is he a failure? How do you measure success? So, what if your son has a medical degree, he’s ready to practice and he gets killed tomorrow?

He still may die of success if heaven is his home. But if he doesn’t have heaven as he home as his home, he’s a failure. And so, what we’re really talking about success, let’s not just measure only about the things that have to do with his life, seeing that they get a good education here and now. That’s part of bringing them up properly. But you brought a soul into this world, and the few years you’ll have with them. Those formative years were large to determine what choices that child makes for life. The time of training is short. And someone said about the time we get experienced as parents, we’re out of business. And I know that’s so. Mine are gone. And I hardly know, but it seems like it was just yesterday that they were born.

4. A Child Needs a Mother and a Father

Someone said if we treated our shrubbery like we do our children, we’d all be living in a wilderness in our neighborhoods. Because some of us are just plain old neglecting. We’re not taking the time to really bring up and train up our children the way they ought to be. Parenthood, God intended for children to be a joy to their parents, but that’ll happen only when we raise them up according to God’s principles. This passage in Ephesians 6 says, Ye fathers and ye fathers provoke not your children to wrath. It’s interesting that the word father’s there is poteras, the Greek word. And it really seems to include both male and female. It’s the same word that’s translated in Hebrews 11 and verse 23, talking about the parents of Moses.

His parents, he was hidden for three months by his parents. So it is the same word. And while it is that the father, you may say, has the heaviest responsibility, he’s the head of the home. The success or failure, really, of his home largely depends upon his shoulders, but not his alone. It is a responsibility of both mother and father to bring up the child in the proper way. A child cannot be left to develop on his own. They have to be cared for. They need both parents. A child needs a mother and a father. They’re things that both give to that child. And with the exclusion of either one, it leaves a child with a vacuum there. And a child has to overcome somewhat. That doesn’t mean he can’t, because maybe even this audience, there are some who who are trying to raise children without a father, or maybe without a mother.

Or maybe you were raised that way. And that doesn’t mean you can’t come up and be a successful individual with heaven as your home. But there are still some things that have to be overcome. That would be so much easier with both mother and father being involved. A child cannot be left himself because he is lacking. He has to be. Well, we know this when he’s born in the world, you have to have proper feeding, proper cleaning, proper caring physically. Child needs some help, doesn’t he? Well, we see that. And we we probably get a little bit angry. What was it this morning I saw on the news, and you wonder how Washington News I got in at 2 a.m. But uh I think that was when I saw the news, if I’m not mistaken.

I turned it on. But there was a in a in a trash compactor, a baby that was about to be put to death, that the tenant just happened to hear the baby crying, and the baby’s life was saved. Can you imagine? Sure, a baby is helpless like that. The parent, whoever it was not caring for her, could throw that baby away and think that it’ll be compacted in garbage, and that’d be the end of that baby’s life. What a horrible thing to think. But you know, some think that way. But just as a baby cannot just take care of itself physically, so a child needs other attention as well. Needs to learn how to grow mentally, socially, and spiritually. In Luke chapter 2 and verse 52, the description of the childhood of Jesus Christ, in these words, Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and with man.

5. Provoke Not Your Children to Wrath

And we sometimes say that that shows the aspect of life. That there is the physical, there is the mental, there is the social favor with man, the spiritual favor with God. He grew up. And your children need your guidance in every one of these areas. Don’t just hold your hands and leave them be. Ephesians 6 and 4 says, and ye fathers or parents, provoke not your children to wrath. Provoke them to wrath. Colossians 3.21, the parallel passage to this one of Ephesians 6 and 4 simply says, Do not provoke them to anger lest they be discouraged. Lest they be discouraged. It isn’t saying, don’t ever make him angry, because if you’re training them as a parent, there’ll come times they’re going to get angry with you.

In fact, they might throw a little temper tantrum, and that may be when they need even a little bit more discipline going on. But you’re going to make them angry from time to time, but you do so with such a love that you begin to teach them what is the right way. So that it’s not just angry here what he’s talking about. But whether he’s really, what he’s really saying is it is not to provoke them to become unruly or rebellious or smoldering. Really, the word here means to irritate. Provoke means to irritate. Or to make angry. And it refers sometimes to a lashing open rebellion. Sometimes it refers to an internal smoldering. There have been children who’ve been raised by parents who have finally gotten to the point that these parents have just no control with their child.

When that child begins to reach an age that he has some choices of his own, the child just smolders and can’t wait to leave. And what’s happened here is some parents have provoked that child to wrath to a point that he desires to rebel. And it may point back to the action of the Father. In last week’s bulletin, as well as in today’s bulletin. I pointed out some ways by which we can ruin our children. They weren’t from me, in fact. But if you observed, and I believe it’s today’s bulletin, it is that even the Houston Police Department pointed out some rules by which a child can uh can be ruined. Principle number one, begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. Principle number two, when he picks up bad words, laugh at him.

Principle number three, never give him any spiritual training. Let him wait until he’s 21 years old, and then let him decide for himself. Principle number four, avoid using the word wrong. It may develop a serious guilt complex. Principle number five, pick up everything he leaves lying around so he will be experienced in throwing responsibility on everybody else. It’ll work every time if you use those principles. And then with last week’s and this week’s bulletin, uh excerpts from a book by Dr. Paul Mayer, Christian Child Rearing and Personality Development. And he set forth an outline how to develop a drug addict or an alcoholic. Spoil him, give him everything he wants if he can afford it. When he does wrong, you may nag him, but never spank him.

Foster his dependence on you so drugs or alcohol can replace you when he’s older. Protect him from your husband and from those mean teachers who threaten to spank him from time to time and sue them, if you wish. Make all of his decisions for him, since you’re a lot older and wiser than he is. He might make mistakes and learn from them if you don’t. Criticize his father openly so your son can lose his own self-respect and confidence. Or always bail him out of trouble so he will like you. Besides, he might harm your reputation if he gets a police record. Never let him suffer the consequences of his own behavior. Always step in and solve his problems for him so he can depend on you and run to you when the going gets tough.

Then when he’s older and still hasn’t learned how to solve his own problem, he can continue to run from them through heroin or alcohol. Just play it safe. Be sure to dominate your husband and drive him to drink too if he can. Or take lots of prescription drugs yourself so that taking non-prescription drugs won’t be a major step for him. And then another point how to develop a sociopathic criminal. He said, as usual, start with the ten easy steps the alcoholic’s mother uses, with the following exceptions and additions, that is, never spank your child, because physical punishment is a thing of the past. In fact, spanking is now considered immoral, and it’s even against the law in Sweden. Let your child express himself any way he feels.

Don’t run his life. Let him run yours. Let him manipulate you and play on your guilt if he doesn’t get his own way. Don’t enforce the household rules if there are any. That way he will be able to choose which laws of society he will break when he’s older, and he won’t fear the consequences, since he’s never suffered any. Don’t bother him with chores. Do all of his chores for him. Then he can be irresponsible when he’s older and always blame others when his responsibilities don’t get done right. Be sure to give in when he throws a temper tantrum. He might hit you if you don’t. Don’t ever cross him when he’s angry. It’ll help if you choose to believe his lies. You may even want to tell a few yourself.

Criticize others openly and routinely so he will realize that he’s better than everyone else. Give him a big allowance and don’t make him do anything for it. He may get the idea that he’ll have to work for a living later on if you make him work for it. And if he does anything worthwhile around the house, be sure to pay him richly for each and every good deed. You wouldn’t want him to think what a that a feeling of responsibility is its own reward. How to develop a historical daughter. Use the same easy steps the alcoholic’s mother used point by point, but in addition, do the following. Spoiler. Always let her get her way. Especially if she pouts or cries. Always praise her for her looks, never for her character.

Put a mirror on every wall so she can continually admire herself. Whenever she runs away, and she probably will do this frequently, be sure to run after her and apologize for not letting her have her own way in the first place. Encourage her to become a movie star. By now she’s so dramatic that acting would be quite natural for her. Get divorced and remarried, maybe two or three times, so she can learn what you already know that all men are good for nothings, but you might as well live with one anyway. Then number four, how to develop an adult schizophrenic. Be sure you show no affection. Be a weak father or mother. How to develop an obsessive child. Well, this kind of child is so rigid and inhibited that he’s afraid of everything.

Be sure to be critical, snobbish, domineering, and legalistic. How to develop an accident prone child. Parents should fight with each other constantly and blame the child for the fight so the child will go out and get hurt to punish himself, or just ignore the child all the time so the child will get hurt to get attention. Or just overreact every time he scratches his finger. How to develop an obese child, feed him a lot of food, leave him alone at home all the time so he has nothing to do but eat. And also make sure he has little regard for his father.

Don’t ever spank the child, just nag him, and also make sure the father is always gone. Of course, you know, tongue in cheek with these, you don’t want to develop any of these, do you? So there’s an opposite side of this. If we’re going to really develop a child in the proper way, we really don’t want to do any of these. Yet there are children who are brought up with wrong attitudes. And that doesn’t just accidentally happen. I believe parents can do the best they can do and know to do. And still have some children who go their own way.

When we become adults, that is, we become creatures who make our own choices. And so I don’t mean to make every parent who’s had a child become ungodly to feel guilty. And I do think as a parent that we do look back and we say, I wonder what I did wrong. And maybe in our human imperfections, we’ve done of us are going to be perfect parents. And every one of us who are parents will have to say, Well, I wish I had done some things differently. But on the other hand, I’m speaking to parents of young people here, too. And I don’t want you to go back and say, well, you know, my child has his own will and he makes his own choices, and so you know, whatever I do, he’s going to make his own choice.

While it may be true that as adults we make our own choices, and some of the best of parents can still choose to go bad. Yet, on the other hand, there is something to the proverb train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it, Proverbs 22 and 6. That isn’t an ironclad rule. There are exceptions to it. But that is a rule that is generally so. It is generally true that if you as a parent, will you do your part, and you will develop in that child a kind of conscience and the kind of attitude toward the Lord, toward godliness, that that child will develop in the proper way. You want to develop those wrong attitudes in your child, you can do that as well.

6. You Can Ruin Your Child

There’s some suggestions for you. Over protection. You can smother your child, fence them in, never trust them, always wonder whether you’re they’re telling you the truth. And they’ll finally get to the point little by little where they will resent you and can’t wait to get away from you. Don’t completely fence them in. Favoritism. Some parents have ruined their children by preferring one child over another. Isaac favored Esau over Jacob. And you know the story of Jacob and his sons with Joseph and the others. And it causes some problems. Be careful that you don’t always discourage your child by saying, Well, why don’t you do like your sister? Or why don’t you do like your brother? That causes great problems. You can ruin your child by pushing achievement.

Shove your child so hard to fulfill the goals you never accomplish that finally you destroy your child. You know, there are parents who have pushed their children, maybe it’s in a little league, or their daughters and drama, or they they want their children to do what they didn’t do, and and really they they put upon their child such a burden that nothing’s ever enough. And they destroy their relationship with their children. You can ruin your child by discouragement. You can provoke your child to wrath by by constantly griping and complaining, never giving approval, never giving him a reward or honor. Anything you tell him, it’s always the bad. Now, I know as a parent, sometimes you have to struggle at finding something good to say. But it is good to say the balance of that, that there’s a child has done some good things even when you’re griping about.

A child responds just like you do. Don’t you respond best to reward? Respond best to achievement, to encouragement and approval. Failure to make sacrifices is another way to ruin our children. You know, the child, if he’s brought up feeling like he’s been an intrusion in your life, you didn’t really want the child, you don’t have time with the child, and get out of my way. I’m just too busy. I don’t have time to talk to you now. If you treat the child that way, they’ll soon resent you for that too. Failure to make allowance for their childishness. But children are children. And they’re just times where they’re going to do things that are not right. They’re not adult, they’re not mature. Don’t put them down for it.

Don’t just ridicule them whenever they they may say something or do something and laugh at them and say, oh, that’s dumb. Let them be a child.

Neglect. I remember Brother Homer Haley used to say, boys, he’s don’t ever be too busy preaching that you don’t have time to save your own children. And I I’ve said that, I’ve repeated that many times to gospel preachers. Because you can get so busy in the lives of other people. But I think that’s true of all of us. In this generation of time, we all seem to lead a very busy life. Don’t be so busy trying to be a success at whatever you’re doing, whatever business you’re in, that you don’t have time for your children.

Don’t withdraw your love. Most of all.