Fathers and Christian revival

Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6 )

He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. (Luke 1:17 )

"Isn't that amazing? According to the infallible Word of God, there is something vitally important about fathers. Fathers are the subject of the last breath of Old Testament revelation, and they are once again in the angel's announcement proclaiming the coming of the Messiah.

Both references describe the work of God through His prophet John. John's ministry was to prepare the people of Israel to receive God's Son, Jesus Christ, and thus to inherit the kingdom of grace and salvation that Jesus would establish. This was nothing less than the turning point of all history.

Pay close attention to what we have here. This is God's own definition of true revival. The turning point of all history is characterized by a 'double turning' in the lives of individual men: they turn to their families and they turn to the wisdom of the just, which means that they return to the only source of wisdom for righteous living, God's revealed will in His Word. God says that John (who was the 'Elijah' of the prophecy) would 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.' In Luke the angel repeats this idea and speaks of a second 'turning,' that of 'the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,' which parallels the call of Malachi to 'remember the Law of Moses.' The optimum spiritual condition of people is when the fathers turn their hearts toward their families and when the people return to God's Word as their standard for how to live.

Notice how critically important these matters are. Taking the two passages together, this twofold spiritual condition is necessary, negatively, to avoid God's curse on the land and, positively, to make ready a people who are prepared to receive Jesus and be part of His work in the world.

True revival is not about getting charged with emotion at a church meeting. It is about submitting to God by being family men and obeying His Word....How many men today open the Word daily to understand the truth God has revealed and how it applies to their everyday responsibilities?

This ignorance of God's Word is evident specifically when it comes to understanding what it means to be a man and how exactly a father should turn his heart toward his family...So while many Christian fathers want to become family men, they do not have a clear roadmap, derived from the Bible, to get them there.

With this in mind, here is a sober warning from Hosea 4:6 :

'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.'

Today, God's people are being destroyed due to their lack of knowledge of God's Word. Sheer ignorance is epidemic. But worse is the rejection of the Bible's clear teachings when those doctrines run counter to the current wisdom of our culture.The Lord says He will reject those who so disregard His wisdom and no longer allow them to be His priests who represent Him and carry out His work in the world. Further, he warns of a generational curse: 'I also will forget your children.' Failing to turn our hearts to the 'wisdom of the just' (Luke 1:17 ) by learning the Bible and doing what it says will undermine our efforts to turn our children's hearts to ourselves and to the Lord.

You see, both 'turnings' must come together. You cannot be the family man God wants you to be unless you also turn to His Word as the source o wisdom for how to do that and everything else in life. And this means doing what God says when the world, or even the church, says you are foolish for doing it. A longing to discover the will of God, repentance for failures to conform to His will, and a determination to put His will into practice at all costs - these attitudes have marked any God-sent revival from the time that John prepared a people to follow the Messiah. When the Holy Spirit works renewal in the hearts of people, He leads them to embrace the Bible as the sole standard for what to believe and how to live."

I encourage all Christian men, husbands and fathers to purchase Family Man, Family Leader and read it over and over again. You can purchase the book for AUD15 here.