May 28, 2025 • 49 mins
In this deeply reflective episode of The Legacy Bible Podcast, we journey through Luke 15 — the beloved parable of the prodigal son — to uncover timeless truths about fatherhood. What does it mean to be a father modeled after God’s own heart?
We explore how true fatherhood is built not merely on authority or duty, but on love, selfless giving, discipline grounded in care, and the pursuit of lasting relationship. Drawing lessons from Scripture, we look at how God invites us into a fellowship of love and how earthly fathers (and all of us) can mirror that heart in our own lives.
Whether you’re a parent, a son or daughter, or simply someone longing to understand God’s fatherly love more deeply, this episode will encourage you to reflect, grow, and walk closer with Him.
🎧 Tune in now and join us on this journey of faith, legacy, and love.
Please subscribe and if yiu have any questions please email us at legacybiblepodcast@gmail.com
check out the website at www.legacybiblepodcast.com
Thanks for listening
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Hello friends and welcome. Welcome back. This is the Legacy Bible podcast, a place where
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you will hear. Legacy lessons from legacy audio from the tape archives of the Fellowship
Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois. I'm your host, Marcus Onate. And today I'll be bringing you
another one from tape archives. This was actually a continuation of the one that was last week
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about a father's love. This one is titled the heart of a father. So it's a continuation on
fathers. And it's from June 3rd, 1990. And I guess it was the morning service at the Fellowship
Bible Church, preached by our pastor, Reverend Chuck Rains. So let's get right into it, the
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heart of a father. The Bible is very clear from cover to cover. That God presents Himself as our
heavenly father. He's the one we ought to be talking to every day. In fact, as the Lord put it,
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even every mealtime, giving Him thanks for your daily breath. The one that you look to expecting
soon the return of the Lord Jesus that you might enter in with the Savior and King into the kingdom
that the Father has given into the hands of the Son. And the Son has made available to us.
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Everything that we have in heaven, everything is from the Father's heart and from the Father's
hand and through the Lord Jesus for us, everything. Well, we put our focus certainly on Christ and
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the Bible does. As the one through whom all that God has for us comes to us. He's our Savior. He's
the Lord that wants to rule in our life and will rule in glory forever. But remember, the God
had that's presented to us as one person, though three, and they as one want us to know, he wants
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us to know that he is first our Father as he is the Father of the Son. We need to
learn about being fathers from God. There's just too much in this book on that subject for us to
expect that we're going to ever get it in one brief study. And I mean by that, not just this morning,
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but I mean, even if you should launch out on a study that takes you over many weeks, you're just
not going to explore and exhaust, you'll explore, but won't exhaust the greatness of this truth. It's
something that as Christians, man and woman, boy and girl, as Christians, we should be thinking
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about and exploring and meditating on and rejoicing in every day of our life for the rest of our life.
We thank God. We have a heavenly Father. We have a perfect Father. Regardless of what our
earthly Father has been for us or to us or with us, we have a perfect heavenly Father.
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Last week we looked at a man who was not a good Father. Eli, the high priest, he had two sons,
half-dined Phineas, but he really put his sons ideas about life even above God. And in doing that,
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he really turned his back on God as the perfect standard of righteousness and love.
He really gave up being the kind of Father that he was supposed to be.
He was unfaithful to the God that had even put him in the office of being high priest.
But he also was unfaithful to the God who was the one that gave him two boys because children
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are inherited to the Lord. The fruit of the womb comes to us as a gift from God.
To be a Father is really a privilege that God gives.
We may take it on ourselves to try to procreate children, but when the children come coming into
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that place as a Father is by God's design. God made marriage. He made man, male and female,
and he brought them together and God performed the first marriage. And God gave man and woman
children. And he determined that through the coming into this world through procreation of
these little lives and the growing up of those lives under the tutoredge of parents, God designed
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that that was the way he wanted the human race to go on. Didn't make us like angels.
Every angel is a separate individual creation. Remember these truths because with man, it's different.
With mankind, we have a training period. We're brought into this world as absolutely helpless
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as infants. And we go through years in a home with parents.
Looking to that day when we can step out on our own as individuals, as adults, and bear the
responsibilities of life. And all during that training period, God has lovingly given us a
father and a mother. By the way, you want to understand fatherhood.
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Fatherhood doesn't stop today that a child leaves the home because they're married or because they
choose to go off on their own. Fatherhood doesn't stop there. And I think we really see some truths
about fatherhood in the scriptures that we're going to look at in Luke 15 today that underscore
this truth. Fatherhood goes on for us right on through the adult lives of our children.
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The principles for fatherhood are here in the Word of God. They're to be lived out while they're
with us in that training period till they're brought to adulthood. But they're also here for us
to be good fathers when they go off into adulthood.
Go ahead to discipline Eli. He had to discipline his two sons when Eli wouldn't.
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Haphne and Phineas died. And by the way, Eli died.
But it seems that the deaths were not well, we know the deaths were direct discipline from God,
certainly on Haphne and Phineas and Eli out of the shock of it all also died even though his life
had been long, was not a nice death. It's a sad tragic ending to a life that could have been so
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much happier. Well, here in Luke 15, we see a faithful father, not like Eli. Here we see a father
that kept his focus on underlying truth that comes from God.
And by the way, this truth that this dear father that we see here focuses on could only come from
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God. By the way, all truth comes from God. There's nothing that could be called truth that comes from
anywhere else. Let's look at verse 12. After it states in 11 that he had two sons, it tells us
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about the younger one. Younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that
fall to me. It's an early demand for an inheritance.
All during a child's life, there's a movement toward independence. Child wants to be older.
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They want to grow up. First, they want to be a policeman when they go row up, and then they
want to be a fireman, and then they want to be a garbage collector. And they did get certain
things in their heads that we can't figure out sometimes. And then perhaps they get a little more
sophisticated as they go along. But a child looks for models. Inside of the child is that
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movement toward adulthood, and that desire to get out on his own.
But inside the child is also a need for models, a need for standards. And the child looks around,
in the world around him, for ideas about how to live life.
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And in the parents, the child should find that first
good model. Child should come along the way and think if it's
a child thinking about a role model for a male-ness, should first think about the father.
And if it's a child looking for a role model for female-ness, a child should first think about the mother.
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I want to be like my dad. I want to be like my mom. I want to do what they do.
They might be a farmer. They want to be a farmer.
He's a carpenter. They want to be a carpenter.
Whatever he does, that's good enough for them. Because he's the greatest man in the world.
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She, the mother, is the greatest woman in the world in those years of development.
And then her eyes, of course, look more broadly at the world around them, and they
began to see other things that maybe they'd like to do. Other people that impress them,
others that have values that maybe they want to fulfill.
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All of this mix of training and need for models and the need for self-expression
kind of all comes together in different ways and different individuals.
But when they get to adulthood, they have to go out on their own.
But there is a desire because of the nature of the human heart to have its own way.
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Don't ever forget this about the human heart. It's deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. And the human heart wants to have its own way. They don't really like the human heart.
Never will enjoy authority being exercised over it.
Being restrained and having to go a certain way.
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That isn't the way of the human heart. The human heart has to choose that and love that
seeing that it's good, but it is not the natural way of the human heart.
And so the child really wants to get off on its own. And whether every child ever does this or not,
like this young man did, they would like to do it. They'd like to be able to come to their father
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or their mother and say, Father, give me the portion of my inheritance. Let me go. I'm ready
to go face the world now. It's about time for me to get on with my life under my own terms.
This young man did just that.
He decided it was time to leave. Something you shouldn't skip over in that 12th verse is that when
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the father divided the inheritance, he didn't just give the portion to the young boy. He actually,
at the same time, divided the inheritance so that the elder son received his also.
Keep that in mind because that gentleman might open the door to you to understand a little bit
about fatherhood even during the adult years of your children. That your fatherhood and your
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responsibilities in it don't end just because they're declared to be adults. Even if you were to give
them their inheritance, you see, the elder son stayed at home and his father was there.
His father went on living even though the elder son was at home. The father went on living.
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Well, now whose were the sheep? Who's was this land? Whose house was this that they were living in?
Well, the inheritance had been divided.
Yet the father was still alive.
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Does it seem to be saying to you then that maybe as a father still, while that father was alive,
that elder son, though technically, the one to whom all of that living would come and all that
portion would come still shouldn't hold on to it jealously without giving due regard to his father's
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counsel and input and presence and honor his authority. Not easy, man. To honor the continued
authority of a father even when you are an adult. I don't mean submission to him as you were,
submitted submissive to him as a child. Indeed, as an adult, you're going to be
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held by God to be responsible for the decisions you make to get on with life and to make them.
But is it possible still, even though you're making your own decisions, you're living your own life,
if you were still in his house, is it still possible that you could hear his counsels,
honor him in his place in your life, honor the decisions that he would make even in the use of
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the physical stuff that's still there? You know, when it gets down to money, when it gets down to
things, it gets down to houses, gets down to cattle, gets down to things that decisions are made about
in the everyday world, sometimes relationships come to a freight edge. And thank God he gives us a
story about this and tells us this isn't the way it ought to be. Life still ought to be harmonious
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and loving even when we come down to the details of life. We better find out how in God's counsels
and by the aid of the Spirit of God, by the lordship of Christ to live our everyday lives,
touching the stuff of this life and in the relationships that God has given us,
we should be finding out and experiencing how these things should work smoothly and as a blessing to us.
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Young boy said, give me my inheritance. And the Father gave both the sons their inheritance
and the younger son, not many days after that, left. The sad thing about that in verse 13,
the sad thing about that seems to be the ease, the ease with which that young man left at home.
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Great truth about love. Well, I'll give you two points. I'll underscore this over and over again,
so long as you hear it from me, love focuses on the needs of the other, doing good for the sake of the other.
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Some point under that core, to that is that the priority of the good of the other is put above self.
But there's something else about love. Second thing, you ought to know about it. Keep
being reminded about. And that is that love
hungers for or desires giving of oneself to the other. What that really means is that love wants
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there to be a bond. To give oneself and have the other give themself to you, that you see that,
that's what love wants. Love wants togetherness.
It makes sense then to say that love hates separation.
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If love wants togetherness, then love will hate separation. Love will hurt when there's separation.
But this young man found it to be very easy to take his money and go. That's sad.
Because you see that bond between that father and that son should have been so strong as to make it
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hard for that son to choose his destructive self-oriented desires in this world and his flesh
over that bond of love, that godly love relationship that his father had with his son.
What makes it easy to make bad decisions? What makes it easy to even decide to break the relationship,
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the bonding of love. Well, the Lord put it this way, you can't love two masters. That's the key to
it all. You can't love God and money. All money is, is power to have things go your way. That's all
money is. It's just a vehicle for getting stuff. A vehicle, it's power. It's a vehicle for getting
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what you want to do, what you want to do. You can't love God and love having things your own way.
You can't love God and money. You can't love these two powers at the same time. You can't have two
gods in control. And that's what it comes down to. Why was it easy for him to leave his father
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because the God that he loved made it easy. There wasn't any tearing and hurting for him.
His leaving of his father didn't bring him to despair right away. His heart wasn't hurt.
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What his heart was joined to made it easy for him to leave. What he gave himself to made it easy.
He loved money. He loved himself, his self will. He loved to fulfill his own desires, his lust,
his flesh. It made it easy. And that's sad. That's sad. But he came to an extreme place.
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He came to an extreme place of need. Out in the world, things didn't go as well as he thought they would.
By the way, this is a commentary on the whole program of the deception of Satan.
And we have bought it. This human race has bought it and Christians still struggle with this problem
right on through their Christian lives. We ought not to be deceived, brethren.
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The world is overcome in deception. They are in darkness.
And the God of this world has blinded their eyes lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
should shine unto them. They are in darkness. In fact, Ephesians 5a tells us they are darkness.
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And all how great is that darkness. They are utterly deceived. Satan has blinded their eyes.
They really think that there is a way to be fulfilled out there in that darkness. There is a way to
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be happy out there. There is a way to come to fulfill it out there without God giving themselves
to their love for money, giving themselves to the love for their flesh and their self will.
They really believe it. You see, they are deceived. They believe that they can be happy, that there is
a hope for happiness that way. I will say it again. They are deceived.
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It can't be. Satan is the Father of lies. There is no truth in him. He is a deceiver.
His name is a Paulian destroyer. He doesn't do anything that builds up. He doesn't do anything
that edifies. He doesn't do anything that is good for us. And this young man was deceived.
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He really thought that money would allow him to get all that he needed to be happy.
He pursued it with all of his energy as a young man. He went after it.
And his only problem, he thought, was that the money ran out. I am sure that you could take from
this meaning first that if he had an inexhaustible supply of money that he would go on pursuing this
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lust of his flesh and he would never stop. Now put it this way. Remember the Lord's teaching
about the rich and the poor? Talking about the two ways, the two gates.
There is a broad way. There is a narrow way.
Many go into the broad way and few there be that find the narrow way, right?
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And then he taught about being rich.
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of an edel than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. And you think, now why is that? Because he hasn't come to the end of himself. As long as
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those riches are there and he loves those riches, as long as he thinks those riches could give him
what he wants under his own control, he's never going to stop trying to get it that way. He's going
to live by that deception until he comes to an end of his resources.
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That's why rich men just don't want God.
If they love their riches, what does Paul say to Timothy
is the root of all evil? All evil. You read a verse like this and you say, wow, this must be
saying somebody says the root of all evil, the love of money. It doesn't say most evil.
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It doesn't say a lot of evil. It doesn't say some evil. It doesn't say a little bit of evil.
It doesn't say an occasional evil. It says all evil.
Does that agree with what you understand about the Word of God?
That behind all evil is the desire of the human heart to have the power to exert its own will.
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That's what it wants.
And this young man is no different. He said, give it to me. The Father gave it to him. He went off
and as long as it lasted, his deception continued and thank God, his money ran out. Thank God.
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You know, it's hard to thank God for trials. And I'll tell you, as fathers, it's very hard to
look at our children's lives and when they get into trouble, say thank God, you know.
But if you read the Word of God, if you love them, fathers, if they have to come into hard times
to learn that their deceptions are really just that, deceptions, if they have to learn that that
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stuff doesn't bring happiness, then you have to be able to say, amen. I don't want my children hurt,
but if that's what it takes for them to find out what really counts, if that's what it takes
for them to learn that these are deceptions that they're following, then amen. Let it happen.
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It's the same principle that you had during their training years. Fathers, when it came necessary,
to spank them or to restrict them in some way or to discipline them with that kind of training
that turns them in a way that they don't want to go. It's the same principle. I mean, you should
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take no joy in doing any of that. And certainly in a sense that you don't take any joy in their
will being set against it or they're thinking that they're suffering in some way, there's no joy in
anybody thinking that you're doing that to them. But if you do what you do because you love them,
you can agree with Hebrews 12 that no chasing for the present seems to be joyous but previous.
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But if you can set your heart on this that afterward it yields a pieceable fruit of righteousness to
them that are exercised there by, if these children of yours would let your guidance do its work,
then they're going to be happier for it. And so it is always in the Word of God. We have to learn
this about being fathers, that whether it's dealing with them before they have gone off on their own
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or whether it's in dealing with them afterward, if they have to come to hard times to realize that
God's way is best, we have to in love for them. We have to in our hearts be able to say, Amen.
It hurts but Amen.
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This man came to an end of himself. He was feeding pigs and thinking that he would like to eat
some of their food rather than starve. And at that point, all of his hope in the deceptions of Satan
ended. At that point he undoubtedly thought, if this is the best that going my own way can give
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me, I better name it for what it is, admit that it's a hopeless, hopeless venture and I better look
for another way. Do you know the verse in Proverbs, men? 22, I think. I can't remember the exact
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number of the verse, but it's train up a child in a way he shall go and when he's old, he will not
depart from it. Sometimes we think that that's not working, especially for fathers who have their
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children go off into their adult years. Just think of this man. Off in the world with harlets,
spending his money in the world with absolutely no sorrow about leaving his father.
I'm sure the father could have thought. I don't say this one did, but I mean a father in such a
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circumstance could think, I'll wait a minute. I trained him up in the way he should go and when
he's old, he's departed from it. How do Bible scholars deal with that kind of thing? Well,
you'll hear an answer like this. That's a general principle from the word of God
and that in the specific case of an individual, it may not be true.
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Well, I would agree with that, but I've got to say, I think I could explain it this way.
The ultimate responsibilities for what we do in life are going to fall at our own doorstep. We
must bear our responsibility before God. We cannot say that the decisions that others have made for us
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free us from our responsibility to make decisions.
Child can't say, well, my parents gave me a bad example and I went in their example
and the way of their example and that's why I'm evil. Well, now listen, parents are going to
bear their responsibility before God, each one of us will. But the child is also held in his place
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of responsibility for his decisions. And when this child comes to adulthood and chooses to go his own
way, it's true that on the surface, you look at his life, you may see no evidence that the training
that he received in the righteousness and love is really working. I believe it's just like the
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world at large. The Lord God made man and woman in righteousness and they turned and went their own
way. He has been seeking out the human heart ever since then. Not every one of them responds.
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In fact, by the Lord's own teaching, there's that narrow way and few there be that find it.
So that's the Lord's statement about how many really of the total number are going to heaven.
Compare it to the masses a few, percentage wise. Does that mean that God has not been
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training that God has not been setting out truth, that God has not reached out to every individual,
that God has not left a witness and record of himself, therefore each one to bear responsibility
to respond to? Why, of course not, God is faithful and God has left perfect and ample record and calls
us every one before him to give answer for whether we have trusted him, casting ourselves on him
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for our deliverance from our our self and our sinfulness. Have we done it? God's going to hold
every man, every woman, every child that has reached that place of knowing good and evil is going to
hold us all responsible. He has done a faithful work as a father.
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And when we reach adulthood, when we reach that time, when we could choose, do all in human race
choose the right way? No, most do not. The same with this verse from Proverbs,
I really believe that it's saying, you set a way before a child
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as a, as, and set the right way before a child. Really, we would want to do, but it's telling
you you set away before a child, your way. Hebrews 12 says the way that you as parents,
as fathers, think is right as good. You set that way before a child and that child will choose
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that way. That will be that child's standard for choice.
Going to be drawn to that. What if they go another way? What if they reject that standard?
I think you can rest on this. There will still, as with God, with all human beings,
there's still going to be the inner witness, the inner testimony of righteousness, the right way.
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The Holy Spirit of God will be calling each one of our children back to God, to the Lord,
to Christ, to Godliness, if we have set that way before them. We may live to see each one of them
respond to God and by responding to God, respond to us and to the way that we've set out before
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them. Then again, you may die and not see them respond to God. They may do it after you're dead.
Then again, you may die and they may die and not respond. Does that mean that you haven't been
faithful or God hasn't been faithful? No, because the inner witness of righteousness will have still
been there. And it's a general principle that those that will seek out that which is best,
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if they've been given a good example, they'll follow it. If they've been given a bad example,
they'll follow it. They're looking for examples. God says, give them a righteous one. Give them one
in love. This young man came to the end of himself and he said, I'm going to go home to my father
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and he turned and he went back to his father. He realized that he had sinned in verse 18. This
is what he tells himself. He's going to say, father, I've sinned against heaven and before thee.
And I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And the reason
he wanted to be even as a hired servant was that this hired servants had bread. What does that mean?
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It means that the father was true to his word of commitment in his contract with his even his
slaves. And this young man knew that about the character of his father. He went back.
Wonderful scene here when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and head compassion and
ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. When you read that 20th verse, look who it is that's responding.
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It's a father responding and he's responding not according to law, not according to just rules and
righteousness, but according to love. Here he is, not just on the basis of a contract with a slave.
You work for me. I'll give you bread, not just on the basis of that righteousness or that law,
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but on the basis of love that wants what's good for his son, he saw him a great way off.
So his heart really is searching the horizon for his son. He was looking for him and his father's
the one that ran, his father's the one that fell on his neck and the father is the one that kissed
him. That running isn't by contract people. That falling on the neck, that embracing, that's not
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contract. You wait a long day before an employer necessarily because you have made an agreement to
get so much for our for your labor is going to when you see you run up to you and fall on you and
embrace you and start kissing you. Oh, you've come to work. Oh, that's not the basis of the agreement.
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The basis of the agreement is you work. Here's your pay. That's what you get from the employer,
but that isn't what the son got. The son didn't get law, righteousness, contract. The son got love
and love means you give yourself, you give yourself for the good of that other one. You give all that
you are. You want joining. You want relationship. You want fellowship. That's what love wants,
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a sharing. And he went to he ran to him. The son rehearsed father I've sinned before heaven and
in your sight and no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.
It's really repentance. Sometimes you don't even have to say I forgive you. What comes next? What
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you say? What you do proves that you've forgiven. And it certainly did in this case.
Repentance will open the door for reconciliation, but repentance or you're asking forgiveness is not
reconciliation. You know, you can ask for forgiveness, but it just doesn't do it. It's not enough. You
know what it takes? It takes the giving of love, the giving of yourself. If you get the sin out of
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the way, you still have to give yourself. You've got two things there. You have to say, please,
let's get rid of the sin between us. Amen. Both have to see that and do it. But there has to be a
commitment to give yourself to each other for there to be relationship and fellowship. And the father
said it. He said, bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be married. For this,
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my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. They began to be married.
This is joy. Joy comes not from contract. Joy doesn't come from righteousness being lived out
or law being lived. Joy comes from love. Joy comes from relationship. Joy comes from two giving
themselves to each other. Joy comes from love. And the father wasn't just interested in having
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another slave. The father wanted love relationship restored. And when the son came back, the father
was ready to give and give and give all he had. The older son is very upset about this because he
had a vested interest in this fatted calf. This expense for a party in merrymaking is very upset
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about it. But the last verse of this story repeats this principle again, verse 32. It was
meat that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again. He was
lost and is found. It's proper for us to do this. Father's, all he's saying twice over is this.
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There's an underlying truth, an underlying principle here. If you want to be a good father,
you've got to have this principle underlying you're being a father. What is it?
That you're more concerned about your relationship with your child. You're giving of yourself to that child and that child giving it
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themselves to you. You're more concerned about love. You're more concerned about their good than anything else.
And you'll pay any price for that because you want the joy, your heart hungers, for the joy of the fellowship that comes out of that.
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You're not going to be happy simply because they're there doing their duty.
Though the older son was there, there's no joy in that older son's relationship with his father. He was there doing his duty.
God, your heavenly father wants more than that from you and you as a father ought to know this and you ought to want more than that from your children.
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You ought not to want their dutiful obedience only. You want their hearts delayed. You want relationship. You want them to give themselves to you and let them
and for them to receive your giving of yourself to them. You want fellowship. You want enjoyment, joy.
Now what price can you put on that? And that father didn't put the price of any inheritance on it.
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He didn't hold that above that joy and he didn't let put his son's hurting coming to the end of himself above that joy.
Or his own sorrow at the separation of love above that joy.
That was first and that's what God did in sending his son for us.
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And that's how we came to be saved. But listen, I want to talk to you as adults now, as born-again believers.
That's the same father that gave us the son for salvation.
That has a that same love for us as his now his born-again children.
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That we would let his union with us be lived out in joy in fellowship.
That's the desire of our father's heart.
That's a controlling underlying principle for his work with us as his children and our
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place as fathers with our children.
He's our perfect standard.
Are you letting him have your love?
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Fatherhood starts right there. Are you letting your God have your love?
Is he first? Are you enjoying your relationship with him? Are you giving your heart to him in everything?
Do you know this so well that you let that be the prime principle for your fathering
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so that you can make those decisions that have to be made about guidance?
Are you prepared for your elder years of being a father after they're out of the nest?
Will it still control your heart?
To seek their good and to maintain that bond of fellowship in that love?
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That's great.
Lord Jesus, my prayer for these dear people especially for these men that would hear this even
those that are looking toward fatherhood or back upon it.
Is that we as fathers would walk with you
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giving ourselves to you as our heavenly father and delighting in all that you give to us?
In knowing the joy of our relationship with you Lord and settling for nothing less than that for our children.
To train them up in the way they should go bringing them to Christ but oh Lord beyond that
training them in righteousness because we love them.
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Bringing them along in every step of life's way according to righteousness because we love them
and giving ourselves along as you give us breath to seek union with them in love
a sharing with them of life and the joy that comes out of that fellowship.
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Just as you do for us feeding us, clothing us, guiding us, disciplining us,
empowering us to do all that you would direct us to do for our good and for your glory
and holding us in that close bond of fellowship that we know
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and the joy of that fellowship that we know.
We thank you Father and we thank you by your spirit and because of your councils in your word
that we can know this daily and live it out with our children in Jesus name. Amen.
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Well there you have it. Thank you Pastor Rains for another message from the Word of God on
Father's. This was a continuation of last week's message. So before that we had two on mothers
and now there's two messages on fathers. So kind of anxious to see what's coming up next.
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I don't know children maybe. I don't know. We'll see. But you have to come back.
You'll find out because I don't even know what I'm putting up next but something will be there.
So come on back next week and you could hear some more from the tape archive of the Fellowship
Bible Church in joliet Illinois. All righty then. So why don't you check out the website.
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You could do that. Check out the transcripts. That's always a nice something if you like reading
and you could check out some of the back episodes. They're on YouTube and on your podcast,
your podcast catcher of your choice. So they're out there. You just have to search them out.
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I think we're up to this is episode 63. So there's 62 previous ones for you to choose from
if you haven't gone back and listened to those. So you should check those out.
And also subscribe. Yes, that would be good. Subscribe. And if you want you could
you know send us a message and say hey what a great podcast. So you can leave your comments on your
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podcast catcher of your choice already then. So thank you for listening. Come back again next week
and have a great day. Oh yeah. Make sure you read your Bible this week and every week.
So it could be part of your part of your legacy. An epic, great legacy to leave by
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Bible reading. All right. So come back next week. We'll talk to you then. See you later. Have a great day.
Hello friends and welcome. Welcome back. This is the Legacy Bible podcast, a place where
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you will hear. Legacy lessons from legacy audio from the tape archives of the Fellowship
Bible Church in Joliet, Illinois. I'm your host, Marcus Onate. And today I'll be bringing you
another one from tape archives. This was actually a continuation of the one that was last week
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about a father's love. This one is titled the heart of a father. So it's a continuation on
fathers. And it's from June 3rd, 1990. And I guess it was the morning service at the Fellowship
Bible Church, preached by our pastor, Reverend Chuck Rains. So let's get right into it, the
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heart of a father. The Bible is very clear from cover to cover. That God presents Himself as our
heavenly father. He's the one we ought to be talking to every day. In fact, as the Lord put it,
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even every mealtime, giving Him thanks for your daily breath. The one that you look to expecting
soon the return of the Lord Jesus that you might enter in with the Savior and King into the kingdom
that the Father has given into the hands of the Son. And the Son has made available to us.
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Everything that we have in heaven, everything is from the Father's heart and from the Father's
hand and through the Lord Jesus for us, everything. Well, we put our focus certainly on Christ and
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the Bible does. As the one through whom all that God has for us comes to us. He's our Savior. He's
the Lord that wants to rule in our life and will rule in glory forever. But remember, the God
had that's presented to us as one person, though three, and they as one want us to know, he wants
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us to know that he is first our Father as he is the Father of the Son. We need to
learn about being fathers from God. There's just too much in this book on that subject for us to
expect that we're going to ever get it in one brief study. And I mean by that, not just this morning,
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but I mean, even if you should launch out on a study that takes you over many weeks, you're just
not going to explore and exhaust, you'll explore, but won't exhaust the greatness of this truth. It's
something that as Christians, man and woman, boy and girl, as Christians, we should be thinking
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about and exploring and meditating on and rejoicing in every day of our life for the rest of our life.
We thank God. We have a heavenly Father. We have a perfect Father. Regardless of what our
earthly Father has been for us or to us or with us, we have a perfect heavenly Father.
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Last week we looked at a man who was not a good Father. Eli, the high priest, he had two sons,
half-dined Phineas, but he really put his sons ideas about life even above God. And in doing that,
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he really turned his back on God as the perfect standard of righteousness and love.
He really gave up being the kind of Father that he was supposed to be.
He was unfaithful to the God that had even put him in the office of being high priest.
But he also was unfaithful to the God who was the one that gave him two boys because children
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are inherited to the Lord. The fruit of the womb comes to us as a gift from God.
To be a Father is really a privilege that God gives.
We may take it on ourselves to try to procreate children, but when the children come coming into
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that place as a Father is by God's design. God made marriage. He made man, male and female,
and he brought them together and God performed the first marriage. And God gave man and woman
children. And he determined that through the coming into this world through procreation of
these little lives and the growing up of those lives under the tutoredge of parents, God designed
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that that was the way he wanted the human race to go on. Didn't make us like angels.
Every angel is a separate individual creation. Remember these truths because with man, it's different.
With mankind, we have a training period. We're brought into this world as absolutely helpless
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as infants. And we go through years in a home with parents.
Looking to that day when we can step out on our own as individuals, as adults, and bear the
responsibilities of life. And all during that training period, God has lovingly given us a
father and a mother. By the way, you want to understand fatherhood.
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Fatherhood doesn't stop today that a child leaves the home because they're married or because they
choose to go off on their own. Fatherhood doesn't stop there. And I think we really see some truths
about fatherhood in the scriptures that we're going to look at in Luke 15 today that underscore
this truth. Fatherhood goes on for us right on through the adult lives of our children.
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The principles for fatherhood are here in the Word of God. They're to be lived out while they're
with us in that training period till they're brought to adulthood. But they're also here for us
to be good fathers when they go off into adulthood.
Go ahead to discipline Eli. He had to discipline his two sons when Eli wouldn't.
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Haphne and Phineas died. And by the way, Eli died.
But it seems that the deaths were not well, we know the deaths were direct discipline from God,
certainly on Haphne and Phineas and Eli out of the shock of it all also died even though his life
had been long, was not a nice death. It's a sad tragic ending to a life that could have been so
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much happier. Well, here in Luke 15, we see a faithful father, not like Eli. Here we see a father
that kept his focus on underlying truth that comes from God.
And by the way, this truth that this dear father that we see here focuses on could only come from
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God. By the way, all truth comes from God. There's nothing that could be called truth that comes from
anywhere else. Let's look at verse 12. After it states in 11 that he had two sons, it tells us
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about the younger one. Younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that
fall to me. It's an early demand for an inheritance.
All during a child's life, there's a movement toward independence. Child wants to be older.
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They want to grow up. First, they want to be a policeman when they go row up, and then they
want to be a fireman, and then they want to be a garbage collector. And they did get certain
things in their heads that we can't figure out sometimes. And then perhaps they get a little more
sophisticated as they go along. But a child looks for models. Inside of the child is that
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movement toward adulthood, and that desire to get out on his own.
But inside the child is also a need for models, a need for standards. And the child looks around,
in the world around him, for ideas about how to live life.
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And in the parents, the child should find that first
good model. Child should come along the way and think if it's
a child thinking about a role model for a male-ness, should first think about the father.
And if it's a child looking for a role model for female-ness, a child should first think about the mother.
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I want to be like my dad. I want to be like my mom. I want to do what they do.
They might be a farmer. They want to be a farmer.
He's a carpenter. They want to be a carpenter.
Whatever he does, that's good enough for them. Because he's the greatest man in the world.
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She, the mother, is the greatest woman in the world in those years of development.
And then her eyes, of course, look more broadly at the world around them, and they
began to see other things that maybe they'd like to do. Other people that impress them,
others that have values that maybe they want to fulfill.
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All of this mix of training and need for models and the need for self-expression
kind of all comes together in different ways and different individuals.
But when they get to adulthood, they have to go out on their own.
But there is a desire because of the nature of the human heart to have its own way.
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Don't ever forget this about the human heart. It's deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. And the human heart wants to have its own way. They don't really like the human heart.
Never will enjoy authority being exercised over it.
Being restrained and having to go a certain way.
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That isn't the way of the human heart. The human heart has to choose that and love that
seeing that it's good, but it is not the natural way of the human heart.
And so the child really wants to get off on its own. And whether every child ever does this or not,
like this young man did, they would like to do it. They'd like to be able to come to their father
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or their mother and say, Father, give me the portion of my inheritance. Let me go. I'm ready
to go face the world now. It's about time for me to get on with my life under my own terms.
This young man did just that.
He decided it was time to leave. Something you shouldn't skip over in that 12th verse is that when
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the father divided the inheritance, he didn't just give the portion to the young boy. He actually,
at the same time, divided the inheritance so that the elder son received his also.
Keep that in mind because that gentleman might open the door to you to understand a little bit
about fatherhood even during the adult years of your children. That your fatherhood and your
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responsibilities in it don't end just because they're declared to be adults. Even if you were to give
them their inheritance, you see, the elder son stayed at home and his father was there.
His father went on living even though the elder son was at home. The father went on living.
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Well, now whose were the sheep? Who's was this land? Whose house was this that they were living in?
Well, the inheritance had been divided.
Yet the father was still alive.
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Does it seem to be saying to you then that maybe as a father still, while that father was alive,
that elder son, though technically, the one to whom all of that living would come and all that
portion would come still shouldn't hold on to it jealously without giving due regard to his father's
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counsel and input and presence and honor his authority. Not easy, man. To honor the continued
authority of a father even when you are an adult. I don't mean submission to him as you were,
submitted submissive to him as a child. Indeed, as an adult, you're going to be
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held by God to be responsible for the decisions you make to get on with life and to make them.
But is it possible still, even though you're making your own decisions, you're living your own life,
if you were still in his house, is it still possible that you could hear his counsels,
honor him in his place in your life, honor the decisions that he would make even in the use of
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the physical stuff that's still there? You know, when it gets down to money, when it gets down to
things, it gets down to houses, gets down to cattle, gets down to things that decisions are made about
in the everyday world, sometimes relationships come to a freight edge. And thank God he gives us a
story about this and tells us this isn't the way it ought to be. Life still ought to be harmonious
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and loving even when we come down to the details of life. We better find out how in God's counsels
and by the aid of the Spirit of God, by the lordship of Christ to live our everyday lives,
touching the stuff of this life and in the relationships that God has given us,
we should be finding out and experiencing how these things should work smoothly and as a blessing to us.
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Young boy said, give me my inheritance. And the Father gave both the sons their inheritance
and the younger son, not many days after that, left. The sad thing about that in verse 13,
the sad thing about that seems to be the ease, the ease with which that young man left at home.
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Great truth about love. Well, I'll give you two points. I'll underscore this over and over again,
so long as you hear it from me, love focuses on the needs of the other, doing good for the sake of the other.
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Some point under that core, to that is that the priority of the good of the other is put above self.
But there's something else about love. Second thing, you ought to know about it. Keep
being reminded about. And that is that love
hungers for or desires giving of oneself to the other. What that really means is that love wants
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there to be a bond. To give oneself and have the other give themself to you, that you see that,
that's what love wants. Love wants togetherness.
It makes sense then to say that love hates separation.
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If love wants togetherness, then love will hate separation. Love will hurt when there's separation.
But this young man found it to be very easy to take his money and go. That's sad.
Because you see that bond between that father and that son should have been so strong as to make it
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hard for that son to choose his destructive self-oriented desires in this world and his flesh
over that bond of love, that godly love relationship that his father had with his son.
What makes it easy to make bad decisions? What makes it easy to even decide to break the relationship,
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the bonding of love. Well, the Lord put it this way, you can't love two masters. That's the key to
it all. You can't love God and money. All money is, is power to have things go your way. That's all
money is. It's just a vehicle for getting stuff. A vehicle, it's power. It's a vehicle for getting
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what you want to do, what you want to do. You can't love God and love having things your own way.
You can't love God and money. You can't love these two powers at the same time. You can't have two
gods in control. And that's what it comes down to. Why was it easy for him to leave his father
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because the God that he loved made it easy. There wasn't any tearing and hurting for him.
His leaving of his father didn't bring him to despair right away. His heart wasn't hurt.
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What his heart was joined to made it easy for him to leave. What he gave himself to made it easy.
He loved money. He loved himself, his self will. He loved to fulfill his own desires, his lust,
his flesh. It made it easy. And that's sad. That's sad. But he came to an extreme place.
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He came to an extreme place of need. Out in the world, things didn't go as well as he thought they would.
By the way, this is a commentary on the whole program of the deception of Satan.
And we have bought it. This human race has bought it and Christians still struggle with this problem
right on through their Christian lives. We ought not to be deceived, brethren.
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The world is overcome in deception. They are in darkness.
And the God of this world has blinded their eyes lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
should shine unto them. They are in darkness. In fact, Ephesians 5a tells us they are darkness.
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And all how great is that darkness. They are utterly deceived. Satan has blinded their eyes.
They really think that there is a way to be fulfilled out there in that darkness. There is a way to
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be happy out there. There is a way to come to fulfill it out there without God giving themselves
to their love for money, giving themselves to the love for their flesh and their self will.
They really believe it. You see, they are deceived. They believe that they can be happy, that there is
a hope for happiness that way. I will say it again. They are deceived.
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It can't be. Satan is the Father of lies. There is no truth in him. He is a deceiver.
His name is a Paulian destroyer. He doesn't do anything that builds up. He doesn't do anything
that edifies. He doesn't do anything that is good for us. And this young man was deceived.
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He really thought that money would allow him to get all that he needed to be happy.
He pursued it with all of his energy as a young man. He went after it.
And his only problem, he thought, was that the money ran out. I am sure that you could take from
this meaning first that if he had an inexhaustible supply of money that he would go on pursuing this
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lust of his flesh and he would never stop. Now put it this way. Remember the Lord's teaching
about the rich and the poor? Talking about the two ways, the two gates.
There is a broad way. There is a narrow way.
Many go into the broad way and few there be that find the narrow way, right?
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And then he taught about being rich.
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of an edel than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of heaven. And you think, now why is that? Because he hasn't come to the end of himself. As long as
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those riches are there and he loves those riches, as long as he thinks those riches could give him
what he wants under his own control, he's never going to stop trying to get it that way. He's going
to live by that deception until he comes to an end of his resources.
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That's why rich men just don't want God.
If they love their riches, what does Paul say to Timothy
is the root of all evil? All evil. You read a verse like this and you say, wow, this must be
saying somebody says the root of all evil, the love of money. It doesn't say most evil.
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It doesn't say a lot of evil. It doesn't say some evil. It doesn't say a little bit of evil.
It doesn't say an occasional evil. It says all evil.
Does that agree with what you understand about the Word of God?
That behind all evil is the desire of the human heart to have the power to exert its own will.
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That's what it wants.
And this young man is no different. He said, give it to me. The Father gave it to him. He went off
and as long as it lasted, his deception continued and thank God, his money ran out. Thank God.
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You know, it's hard to thank God for trials. And I'll tell you, as fathers, it's very hard to
look at our children's lives and when they get into trouble, say thank God, you know.
But if you read the Word of God, if you love them, fathers, if they have to come into hard times
to learn that their deceptions are really just that, deceptions, if they have to learn that that
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stuff doesn't bring happiness, then you have to be able to say, amen. I don't want my children hurt,
but if that's what it takes for them to find out what really counts, if that's what it takes
for them to learn that these are deceptions that they're following, then amen. Let it happen.
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It's the same principle that you had during their training years. Fathers, when it came necessary,
to spank them or to restrict them in some way or to discipline them with that kind of training
that turns them in a way that they don't want to go. It's the same principle. I mean, you should
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take no joy in doing any of that. And certainly in a sense that you don't take any joy in their
will being set against it or they're thinking that they're suffering in some way, there's no joy in
anybody thinking that you're doing that to them. But if you do what you do because you love them,
you can agree with Hebrews 12 that no chasing for the present seems to be joyous but previous.
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But if you can set your heart on this that afterward it yields a pieceable fruit of righteousness to
them that are exercised there by, if these children of yours would let your guidance do its work,
then they're going to be happier for it. And so it is always in the Word of God. We have to learn
this about being fathers, that whether it's dealing with them before they have gone off on their own
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or whether it's in dealing with them afterward, if they have to come to hard times to realize that
God's way is best, we have to in love for them. We have to in our hearts be able to say, Amen.
It hurts but Amen.
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This man came to an end of himself. He was feeding pigs and thinking that he would like to eat
some of their food rather than starve. And at that point, all of his hope in the deceptions of Satan
ended. At that point he undoubtedly thought, if this is the best that going my own way can give
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me, I better name it for what it is, admit that it's a hopeless, hopeless venture and I better look
for another way. Do you know the verse in Proverbs, men? 22, I think. I can't remember the exact
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number of the verse, but it's train up a child in a way he shall go and when he's old, he will not
depart from it. Sometimes we think that that's not working, especially for fathers who have their
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children go off into their adult years. Just think of this man. Off in the world with harlets,
spending his money in the world with absolutely no sorrow about leaving his father.
I'm sure the father could have thought. I don't say this one did, but I mean a father in such a
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circumstance could think, I'll wait a minute. I trained him up in the way he should go and when
he's old, he's departed from it. How do Bible scholars deal with that kind of thing? Well,
you'll hear an answer like this. That's a general principle from the word of God
and that in the specific case of an individual, it may not be true.
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Well, I would agree with that, but I've got to say, I think I could explain it this way.
The ultimate responsibilities for what we do in life are going to fall at our own doorstep. We
must bear our responsibility before God. We cannot say that the decisions that others have made for us
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free us from our responsibility to make decisions.
Child can't say, well, my parents gave me a bad example and I went in their example
and the way of their example and that's why I'm evil. Well, now listen, parents are going to
bear their responsibility before God, each one of us will. But the child is also held in his place
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of responsibility for his decisions. And when this child comes to adulthood and chooses to go his own
way, it's true that on the surface, you look at his life, you may see no evidence that the training
that he received in the righteousness and love is really working. I believe it's just like the
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world at large. The Lord God made man and woman in righteousness and they turned and went their own
way. He has been seeking out the human heart ever since then. Not every one of them responds.
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In fact, by the Lord's own teaching, there's that narrow way and few there be that find it.
So that's the Lord's statement about how many really of the total number are going to heaven.
Compare it to the masses a few, percentage wise. Does that mean that God has not been
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training that God has not been setting out truth, that God has not reached out to every individual,
that God has not left a witness and record of himself, therefore each one to bear responsibility
to respond to? Why, of course not, God is faithful and God has left perfect and ample record and calls
us every one before him to give answer for whether we have trusted him, casting ourselves on him
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for our deliverance from our our self and our sinfulness. Have we done it? God's going to hold
every man, every woman, every child that has reached that place of knowing good and evil is going to
hold us all responsible. He has done a faithful work as a father.
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And when we reach adulthood, when we reach that time, when we could choose, do all in human race
choose the right way? No, most do not. The same with this verse from Proverbs,
I really believe that it's saying, you set a way before a child
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as a, as, and set the right way before a child. Really, we would want to do, but it's telling
you you set away before a child, your way. Hebrews 12 says the way that you as parents,
as fathers, think is right as good. You set that way before a child and that child will choose
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that way. That will be that child's standard for choice.
Going to be drawn to that. What if they go another way? What if they reject that standard?
I think you can rest on this. There will still, as with God, with all human beings,
there's still going to be the inner witness, the inner testimony of righteousness, the right way.
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The Holy Spirit of God will be calling each one of our children back to God, to the Lord,
to Christ, to Godliness, if we have set that way before them. We may live to see each one of them
respond to God and by responding to God, respond to us and to the way that we've set out before
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them. Then again, you may die and not see them respond to God. They may do it after you're dead.
Then again, you may die and they may die and not respond. Does that mean that you haven't been
faithful or God hasn't been faithful? No, because the inner witness of righteousness will have still
been there. And it's a general principle that those that will seek out that which is best,
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if they've been given a good example, they'll follow it. If they've been given a bad example,
they'll follow it. They're looking for examples. God says, give them a righteous one. Give them one
in love. This young man came to the end of himself and he said, I'm going to go home to my father
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and he turned and he went back to his father. He realized that he had sinned in verse 18. This
is what he tells himself. He's going to say, father, I've sinned against heaven and before thee.
And I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And the reason
he wanted to be even as a hired servant was that this hired servants had bread. What does that mean?
(36:04):
It means that the father was true to his word of commitment in his contract with his even his
slaves. And this young man knew that about the character of his father. He went back.
Wonderful scene here when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and head compassion and
ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. When you read that 20th verse, look who it is that's responding.
(36:34):
It's a father responding and he's responding not according to law, not according to just rules and
righteousness, but according to love. Here he is, not just on the basis of a contract with a slave.
You work for me. I'll give you bread, not just on the basis of that righteousness or that law,
(36:57):
but on the basis of love that wants what's good for his son, he saw him a great way off.
So his heart really is searching the horizon for his son. He was looking for him and his father's
the one that ran, his father's the one that fell on his neck and the father is the one that kissed
him. That running isn't by contract people. That falling on the neck, that embracing, that's not
(37:25):
contract. You wait a long day before an employer necessarily because you have made an agreement to
get so much for our for your labor is going to when you see you run up to you and fall on you and
embrace you and start kissing you. Oh, you've come to work. Oh, that's not the basis of the agreement.
(37:46):
The basis of the agreement is you work. Here's your pay. That's what you get from the employer,
but that isn't what the son got. The son didn't get law, righteousness, contract. The son got love
and love means you give yourself, you give yourself for the good of that other one. You give all that
you are. You want joining. You want relationship. You want fellowship. That's what love wants,
(38:15):
a sharing. And he went to he ran to him. The son rehearsed father I've sinned before heaven and
in your sight and no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.
It's really repentance. Sometimes you don't even have to say I forgive you. What comes next? What
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you say? What you do proves that you've forgiven. And it certainly did in this case.
Repentance will open the door for reconciliation, but repentance or you're asking forgiveness is not
reconciliation. You know, you can ask for forgiveness, but it just doesn't do it. It's not enough. You
know what it takes? It takes the giving of love, the giving of yourself. If you get the sin out of
(39:08):
the way, you still have to give yourself. You've got two things there. You have to say, please,
let's get rid of the sin between us. Amen. Both have to see that and do it. But there has to be a
commitment to give yourself to each other for there to be relationship and fellowship. And the father
said it. He said, bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be married. For this,
(39:32):
my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. They began to be married.
This is joy. Joy comes not from contract. Joy doesn't come from righteousness being lived out
or law being lived. Joy comes from love. Joy comes from relationship. Joy comes from two giving
themselves to each other. Joy comes from love. And the father wasn't just interested in having
(40:03):
another slave. The father wanted love relationship restored. And when the son came back, the father
was ready to give and give and give all he had. The older son is very upset about this because he
had a vested interest in this fatted calf. This expense for a party in merrymaking is very upset
(40:29):
about it. But the last verse of this story repeats this principle again, verse 32. It was
meat that we should make merry and be glad for this thy brother was dead and is alive again. He was
lost and is found. It's proper for us to do this. Father's, all he's saying twice over is this.
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There's an underlying truth, an underlying principle here. If you want to be a good father,
you've got to have this principle underlying you're being a father. What is it?
That you're more concerned about your relationship with your child. You're giving of yourself to that child and that child giving it
(41:21):
themselves to you. You're more concerned about love. You're more concerned about their good than anything else.
And you'll pay any price for that because you want the joy, your heart hungers, for the joy of the fellowship that comes out of that.
(41:45):
You're not going to be happy simply because they're there doing their duty.
Though the older son was there, there's no joy in that older son's relationship with his father. He was there doing his duty.
God, your heavenly father wants more than that from you and you as a father ought to know this and you ought to want more than that from your children.
(42:11):
You ought not to want their dutiful obedience only. You want their hearts delayed. You want relationship. You want them to give themselves to you and let them
and for them to receive your giving of yourself to them. You want fellowship. You want enjoyment, joy.
Now what price can you put on that? And that father didn't put the price of any inheritance on it.
(42:38):
He didn't hold that above that joy and he didn't let put his son's hurting coming to the end of himself above that joy.
Or his own sorrow at the separation of love above that joy.
That was first and that's what God did in sending his son for us.
(43:00):
And that's how we came to be saved. But listen, I want to talk to you as adults now, as born-again believers.
That's the same father that gave us the son for salvation.
That has a that same love for us as his now his born-again children.
(43:22):
That we would let his union with us be lived out in joy in fellowship.
That's the desire of our father's heart.
That's a controlling underlying principle for his work with us as his children and our
(43:44):
place as fathers with our children.
He's our perfect standard.
Are you letting him have your love?
(44:07):
Fatherhood starts right there. Are you letting your God have your love?
Is he first? Are you enjoying your relationship with him? Are you giving your heart to him in everything?
Do you know this so well that you let that be the prime principle for your fathering
(44:32):
so that you can make those decisions that have to be made about guidance?
Are you prepared for your elder years of being a father after they're out of the nest?
Will it still control your heart?
To seek their good and to maintain that bond of fellowship in that love?
(44:59):
That's great.
Lord Jesus, my prayer for these dear people especially for these men that would hear this even
those that are looking toward fatherhood or back upon it.
Is that we as fathers would walk with you
(45:22):
giving ourselves to you as our heavenly father and delighting in all that you give to us?
In knowing the joy of our relationship with you Lord and settling for nothing less than that for our children.
To train them up in the way they should go bringing them to Christ but oh Lord beyond that
training them in righteousness because we love them.
(45:44):
Bringing them along in every step of life's way according to righteousness because we love them
and giving ourselves along as you give us breath to seek union with them in love
a sharing with them of life and the joy that comes out of that fellowship.
(46:13):
Just as you do for us feeding us, clothing us, guiding us, disciplining us,
empowering us to do all that you would direct us to do for our good and for your glory
and holding us in that close bond of fellowship that we know
(46:37):
and the joy of that fellowship that we know.
We thank you Father and we thank you by your spirit and because of your councils in your word
that we can know this daily and live it out with our children in Jesus name. Amen.
(46:59):
Well there you have it. Thank you Pastor Rains for another message from the Word of God on
Father's. This was a continuation of last week's message. So before that we had two on mothers
and now there's two messages on fathers. So kind of anxious to see what's coming up next.
(47:20):
I don't know children maybe. I don't know. We'll see. But you have to come back.
You'll find out because I don't even know what I'm putting up next but something will be there.
So come on back next week and you could hear some more from the tape archive of the Fellowship
Bible Church in joliet Illinois. All righty then. So why don't you check out the website.
(47:46):
You could do that. Check out the transcripts. That's always a nice something if you like reading
and you could check out some of the back episodes. They're on YouTube and on your podcast,
your podcast catcher of your choice. So they're out there. You just have to search them out.
(48:08):
I think we're up to this is episode 63. So there's 62 previous ones for you to choose from
if you haven't gone back and listened to those. So you should check those out.
And also subscribe. Yes, that would be good. Subscribe. And if you want you could
you know send us a message and say hey what a great podcast. So you can leave your comments on your
(48:34):
podcast catcher of your choice already then. So thank you for listening. Come back again next week
and have a great day. Oh yeah. Make sure you read your Bible this week and every week.
So it could be part of your part of your legacy. An epic, great legacy to leave by
(48:56):
Bible reading. All right. So come back next week. We'll talk to you then. See you later. Have a great day.
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