I have heard it a lot lately:  "I hate to think what kind of world my children will have to live in when they grow up."  I have said it myself about my own grandchildren.  I think what goes unsaid by most is this:  "Will they be able to stay faithful and endure?"  Finally, the answer came to me one day as I sat musing, or actually brooding, about the direction our country seems to be taking recently, "Of course they will.  They have parents who teach them every day, who live godly examples in front of them, and grandparents who do their best to reinforce those values.  Of course they will make it!"
            Yet that sums up the problem most people have—they do NOT do those things and when they stop to think about it honestly, they know it.  No wondered they are worried.
            I daresay that upwards of 90% of all parents train their children about "stranger danger."  They probably know not to talk to someone they do not know when their parents are not with them, not to go with anyone who is not their parents or someone they are positive their parents sent (we had passwords for that), and to never let anyone touch them in private places.  Those who have firearms in the home probably taught them gun safety from the time they could walk.  Those with pools probably put locked gates around them.  We are always safeguarding our children's lives.  We should also be preparing them to handle persecution and temptation. 
            Now is the time to talk to them, not some distant day in the future.  Sit down tonight and review stories of faithful people who said "No!" to idols, "No!" to evil rulers, and "No!" to Satan.  But even better than that, show them a life of devotion.  Show them a servant who sacrifices for his God.  Show them someone who studies and prays daily, who discusses Bible subjects with his family, including the children, and with other Christians.  Have Christians in your home and show them that others believe this, too—they are not alone.  But even if they are, they have a Father who will not forsake them.  And teach them the hope and the glories of being in Heaven with that Father.
            Do you want your children to survive the world that's coming?  When we might be persecuted or at least scorned publicly for believing in God?  When believing what God says about morality will get us not only ridiculed but hated?  When we might lose our possessions because we do not fall in line with the status quo?  They say that the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 against the Stalinist Hungarian government happened because, despite the Communists' control of the schools and universities, parents taught their children at home about the old Hungary and the freedoms they had enjoyed then.  Though the Soviet Union put down that revolt, 30,000 refugees fled to the United States.  The seeds of that revolt ended in the Republic of Hungary, established in 1989—all because parents did what parents are supposed to do, teach their children at home constantly the things they want them to know.
            Ours will not, and should not, be a military uprising.  But teaching our children at home the things they should know is something we need to take seriously.  "I don't have time," won't be a suitable excuse.  "I don't know how," will not get the job done.  If you are truly worried about the world your children and grandchildren may have to live in someday, then do something about it now.  It may well be that their souls will depend upon it.
 
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all (Ps 103:17-19).
 
Dene Ward
 

A long, long time ago as I sat in the car with my two little boys, waiting for their father to lock up the house before we left that morning, one of them, whose name will remain unmentioned, said, "I can't wait to be the Daddy.  Then I will get to do whatever I want!"  Teaching moment, I instantly thought, and proceeded to use it.
            "You know, Daddies really don't get to do whatever they want."
            "They don't?" he asked in a skeptical little voice.
            "Well, for example, when the weather turns cold in the middle of the night and we all curl up under the blankets in our beds staying warm, who gets up in the cold, shivers while he builds a fire in the wood stove, then stays up the half hour it takes to get it going and finally turned down before he can go back to bed?"
            "Daddy," he said a bit reluctantly, but I could tell he still hadn't gotten my point.
            "And who, when it's pouring down rain at church time, drops us off under the cover, then parks the car and runs through the rain getting all wet and cold?"
            "Daddy," not quite so loudly and with a slightly bowed head. 
            "And who is the one who never gets a Saturday off to watch cartoons like you do, but works to chop more wood so we can stay warm and works in the garden so we can eat?"
            An even softer, "Daddy."  He had finally gotten it, but just to make sure--
            "Daddies have to do whatever is the best thing to take care of their families, whether it's what they want to do or not."  Silence reigned in the car until Keith finally got in, and I never heard another thing about wanting to be the Daddy.
            What he was too young to understand was perhaps the most important thing.  When you are the head, the buck stops with you. 
            President Harry Truman was famous for having a sign on his desk that read, "The buck stops here."  He was referring to the old phrase about "passing the buck," which meant passing on the responsibility.  He knew that as President, he couldn't do that—he was the highest in the chain of command so he was responsible, no matter what happened or who else goofed.  In the home, it works the same way.  If the Father is the head of the house, he is also responsible for everything that goes on in that house.  A lot of men want to "pass the buck," blaming the mother, the schools, the church, society in general.  But God says, "Fathers…bring them up…"  The father may delegate a lot of the responsibility to the mother, but it is still up to him to make sure the job is being done and to help however he can.  He is the one God will call to account because he is the head—the buck stops with him in the home.  In the same way, in the church, the buck stops with the elders.  They will answer for every soul under their headship (Heb 13:17).
            Anyone who thinks headship is about getting to do whatever you want has the same problem as a six year old boy I used to know.  Too much self-centeredness and not enough maturity, even if you are forty years old or more.  That little boy eventually figured it out.  I sure hope those others do before the buck stops with them on Judgment Day.
 
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Heb 12:5-11).
 
Dene Ward

I was a lucky young mother.  When my babies were small, I worshipped with church families that had no nurseries.  I did not realize at the time what a blessing it was.
            When Lucas was a baby, we met with a small congregation that rented a union hall.  The union must not have been very popular.  At the end of a narrow hall was the only room big enough for meeting together, and thirty of us filled it up.  Five of us were nursing mothers, and since that was over half the families in the congregation, the men agreed that we should be able to simply step out of the room to get ourselves situated, then come back in to sit and listen to the sermons or Bible classes while we nursed our babies.  New babies have a tendency to nurse for long periods of time.  We might have missed a full hour if these men had not been so mature-minded, and we ladies gratefully learned early how to stay modest while nursing.  I doubt anyone walking in would have even known what we were doing.
            When Nathan was a toddler we had moved to a place with an actual meetinghouse.  It was an old building way out in the country with absolutely no modern conveniences except electric lights, and certainly no nursery.  You walked in the door and there you stood in the open auditorium.  That meant when you had to deal with unruly children, you dealt with them and then came right back into the assembly. 
            So why do I think I was lucky?  Because I did not have the source of temptation that so many young mothers must deal with today.  When you have no choice, there is no temptation.  Young mothers today must be much stronger than I ever had to be.
            I gleaned advice from several older women during those years.  My mother, for instance, was happy to tell me about how she foiled my attempts to ruin her worship services.  I always acted up and she would take me to the nursery—she lived in the city.  Finally, when I was 18 months old, she realized that she had not trained me, I had trained her—all I had to do was wiggle and squeal a little and I got to go play!  The next Sunday, she took me, not to the nursery, but outside, and applied her hand to my bottom in a less than comforting way.  Then she marched me right back into the auditorium.  She said I looked at her with outrage, as if to say, “This is NOT how it works!  You broke the rules!”  But I was not a stupid child; I learned the new rule quickly:  being taken out of the assembly is not a pleasant experience.
            I went to visit her once at this same meetinghouse.  Suddenly, my baby needed a diaper change and needed it then.  To have stayed sitting there any longer would have broken the commandment to “Love thy neighbor.”
            So I got up and took my twenty-month-old to the nursery.  I was stunned when I walked in.  Several young mothers, and a few who looked like grandmothers, were sitting in there chatting away.  A playpen had been placed in the middle of the room, full of toys.  The side of the playpen was lowered and each baby was sitting around it, reaching in and playing with both the toys and each other.  Could the women see the preacher?  Yes, there was a large picture window in front of them.  Could they hear the preacher?  Well, there was a speaker on the wall, but their talking and laughing drowned it out.
            After the diaper change, I got out of there as quickly as I could.  I recognized the siren call immediately.  I had dealt with two babies at once, while their father preached.  We never lived close to family so I never had a grandparent to help out either.  It was often tiring, frustrating and embarrassing to try to train my children to behave in the assembly.  To have a place to go where I would no longer have to wrestle with them, where they could play and squeal to their heart’s content, would have been wonderful.  But it would not have taught them how important the group worship of God is, how precious the rituals we follow, how much it meant to me and therefore how much it should mean to them.
            Being a parent is not for the weak of heart, mind, or body.  You are on duty 24/7 and you must do what you must do no matter what else is going on in your life.  Children will not wait.  You cannot easily “unteach” what you later wish you had not taught.  I would give anything to undo a lot of the mistakes I made, but it just won’t happen.  In the end you hope you did more right than wrong, and that those right things were more lasting and impressive. 
            Think about what you do, when you do it, and how.  Think about what those little eyes see and those little ears hear.  Think the most about what those little minds infer from what they see and hear you doing.  Your children aren’t stupid either.  Whatever it is you do, when you do it, it stays with them the longest.
And [Hannah] said, "Oh, my lord!  As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord.  For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him.  Therefore I have given him to the Lord.   As long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.”  And he worshiped the Lord there, 1 Sam 1:26-28.

Dene Ward

Our grandsons stayed with us for several days in late May.  We had a wonderful time, but it was a bit different than it has been in the past.  They are now old enough to take care of things we always had to do before, like bathe and dress them, feed them, help with brushing and flossing teeth, and keep an eye on them practically every minute.  Now they do all the personal hygiene and care for themselves.  They even remember their own medicine—which didn't keep me from checking to make sure it was taken.  We still spent a lot of one on one time with them, which is the point, isn't it?  Keith had a homemade slip and slide which required him running a hose continuously over a long piece of plastic on the slope between the two sheds, and I let them help me cook—cookies, waffles, and yeast rolls.  We played the prophets game, as you have already heard about.  And I was the official judge of the Construx car building contest.  (Kind of touchy, that one.)
            Still there were times that we had things that required our attention and they needed to keep themselves busy.  For one of those times I taught them solitaire.  Not the one on the Kindle or the computer, but the one using real cards.  They ate it up and played for literally hours one afternoon while I did the laundry and cooked dinner.  Once I was free again I sat down to see how they were doing.
            "Good," one said.  "We've been experimenting."
            A little careful questioning told me what kind of "experiments" they were doing.  You and I would call it "cheating."  When every third card left them stuck, they changed it to every second card, and finally every single card, in an attempt to keep the game going.  Another time instead of putting a red five on a black six at the "bottom" of a stack, they lifted the stack and put a red queen behind the black jack at the top.  They thought it worked a whole lot better that way because they won more often and got more enjoyment out of it.
            "You know you're not allowed to do that, right?"
            "You’re not?"
            "Nope.  It's against the rules."
            "Oh.  We didn't know that."
            After that, they cut out the "experimenting."  They understood the concept of "rules" and "cheating," and that whether you liked it better or not was not the issue.  The question is:  are you playing solitaire or are you making up a whole new game you like better?
            I know a few people who need that lesson.  They decide that they don't like the way we worship, or the way the church does its business, or the life a Christian is expected to live.  So they do some "experimenting" to find something they like better.  Somehow it never crosses their mind that God ought to have a say in this, that He ought to be able to decide how He wants to be worshipped, how His kingdom ought to run, and the way His servants ought to live.  Some of them may not have thought about that before, that God has the authority to tell us these things and expect us to conform to His rules.  In fact, I have even heard one brother denigrate the idea of authority at all, as if it were rules people made up instead of God.  I worry for that one.  There are too many illustrations in the Old Testament of how God reacted to people who were presumptuous enough to change His commands and do as they pleased.  God has not changed because we live under the New Covenant now.
            So let's set the record straight here.  God is the Supreme Authority.  All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Jehovah. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations (Psalm 22:27,28).
            When it comes to the kingdom, He has given that authority to His Son.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Eph 1:22-23). 
            Jesus gave his apostles authority to tell us how to live and worship.  And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ​Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matt 28:18-20).  That you should remember…the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles (2Pet 3:2).
            You may not like the rules.  You may find other ways of doing things that you like better.  But authority is authority and it won't go away just because you want to "experiment."  My little guys understood that and they followed the rules the rest of their stay.  It actually made winning a lot more satisfying than changing the rules so they could win.  And that's only for a game.  Trying to change God's rules is no game.  Learn them, follow them, and then enjoy the win.
 
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine; I will repay. And again, The Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:26-31).
 
Dene Ward

It's been a couple of years since I shared the Life of David game with you, a board game I made up and used with my children, my young Bible students, and now my grandsons.  That's not the only one I made.  This past spring my grandsons had their first time playing the Major Prophets game.
            First, let me explain this:  this is not about the five books we call the Major Prophets, Isaiah through Daniel.  This is a game about the four major literary prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—and three of the major nonliterary prophets—Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha.
            Second, this is not a wind around the trail start to finish game.  This one is built along the lines of Monopoly, a repetitive rectangle with squares all around the perimeter.  You play for a certain amount of time or until someone reaches a certain point total, however you wish to do it.  My grandsons and I play for a half hour, after which the one with the most points wins.  And, when we hit the half hour mark, we finish a round so that each person has the same number of turns.  Each square around the board contains one prophet's name or a place that is important in one of their lives, scattered at intervals.  Only the names are repeated here and there; the places are not.
            Third, unlike the David game, you do not have to know much to start playing.  You learn as you play, as long as you keep control and don't let them try to rush from one person's turn to another's.  You have to explain the stories as they come up, and the children must listen as you go, so YOU need to know your prophets' lives even if they do not.
            In the center of the board are places to put stacks of card (each the size of one-third of an index card) for each of the prophets.  On these cards are events in the prophets' lives or events they prophesied.  For example, in the stack of Nathan cards you will find, "Go to Jerusalem.  Tell David the story of the ewe lamb, 10 points," and when a child draws that card it is up to you to tell that story.  Or you might find in the Elisha stack, "Go to Shunem.  A wealthy woman there has built a room onto her house for you to stay in when you travel through.  10 points."  Or you might find in the Jeremiah stack, "Go to Jerusalem.  King Jehoiakim burns your book.  Lose 10 points."  Each time you tell a story or explain an event, go over pertinent details carefully, and repeat them at least once.
            Also in the center of the board is a stack of questions.  If they have listened carefully to all the cards, which they will eventually hear again and again, they will be able to answer them when they land on a "?" square, several of which are also scattered around the perimeter of the board.
            And finally, you will find in the middle of the board the really bad places they might have to go should they pick up that particular card:  the Lion's Den, the Miry Pit, Prison, and the Cave of Mt Horeb.  At any time you might draw a card from the Daniel or Jeremiah or Elijah stacks and be sent to one of those places.  The only way to get out is to answer a question correctly.  Instead of rolling, they will choose one from the question stack.  If they get the right answer, then they come out one square (three squares lead out from each place), receive the points on the card, and the next turn they roll as usual, finding their way back to the outside perimeter trail.
            Just as with the David game, this is not rocket science.  And it must be painfully obvious that I am not any kind of artist at all, but it has never bothered any of the children who played these games.  You can do this yourself.  This one does require more work for you than the David game did.  Not only do you have to know your prophets, but then you have to make the cards for each prophet and the question cards, besides drawing the board itself.  Click on the gallery in the left sidebar to see what it looks like, but you can use and adapt  this idea for any number of things you wish to teach your children or your Bible class.  You will have also taught them that Bible study can be fun and interesting as well. 
 
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him (Deut 18:18).
 
You can find the article on the David game in the book Two Little Boys or the July 2018 archives at July 12.  Also a picture in the gallery at left.

Dene Ward

Twice now I have made peanut butter cookies with my younger grandson, Judah.  The first time he was quite young and the best he could do was add whatever I gave him to add.  This last time he was 8, and although he still had to stand on a stool, he was much more capable of "helping." 
            I already had the sugar in the bowl when he pulled up his stool.  I added the peanut butter to the new-fangled doodad that you use for semi-solid ingredients like shortening and peanut butter, that two part contraption where you pull the inside cylinder down, fill up the resulting measure, and then push out the peanut butter.  Judah managed to use the "plunger" quite easily, pushing out that two-cup blob of the main ingredient.  Then I took the tiny measuring glass, the one that measures two tablespoons.  I showed him how far to fill the vanilla, just "this much" under the 1 (tablespoon) mark, using my thumb and forefinger to indicate about an eighth inch.  He leaned over and very carefully filled the little glass a tiny bit then checking, then a bit more, then checking, until he got it just right, and then poured it in around the spinning beater that was busily creaming away the sugar and peanut butter.
            Then it was egg time.  I cracked the first egg just enough to get him started.  He took it and instead of gently pulling the two halves apart, he mashed with both thumbs against his fingers so hard they both flattened completely.  The egg splashed into the cookie dough.  Then he got down off his stool and, without being told to, took the shell to throw into the garbage.  I surreptitiously checked the batter for smithereens of eggshell.  Somehow, none had made it down into the bowl.  One more egg to go.  "Do you think you can crack it yourself?" I asked.  A very serious nod followed, so I handed him the egg and held my breath.  Let's just say, that boy does a number on eggs.  But once again, no shell pieces migrated to the batter, and the vast majority of the egg went into the mixer bowl, so we were okay.
            He really didn't want to handle the dough, making one-inch balls, so I did that myself, spacing them carefully on the parchment lined cookie sheet.  Then he got to work again, using a fork for the characteristic crisscross pattern of all peanut butter cookies which I had shown him how to make.  "It's a hashtag!" he cried, and was quite pleased with himself as he turned and mashed and turned and mashed two sheets worth of cookies.  Obviously it took a little longer to make cookies that day, but it was worth it.  He could hardly wait for them to cool enough to eat, and we had an experience we could share for our entire visit, every time one of us wanted a cookie.
            I think we in the church may have forgotten the patience a new convert takes.  Many of us are spoiled by having only the next generation of those "raised in the church" be baptized.  They are easy to deal with, already having been taught right from wrong at an early age, and sitting in Bible classes since before some of them could even say a word.  Of course most of them will know what to say, how to act, and how to tell true doctrine from the false.  But what about someone who is converted "off the street," so to speak?  I have heard of some churches that have a list of things they require a person to learn before they will baptize them.  Tell me, how much do you think the Philippian jailor knew before Paul baptized him "in the same hour of the night?"  If these "lists" are indeed necessary, God must have made the moon stand still.  No, Paul made sure that man knew enough to say, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
            God expects us to be patient with the newcomers.  Look at this passage:  But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col 3:8-10).  Did you catch that?  These were people who had already "put off the old self and put on the new self," in other words, Christians.  Yet they were still works in progress.  They may have been saints assembling every Sunday, but some of them were still working on anger, slander, lying, and any number of other things.  You know all those passages about being "longsuffering?"  We want to use that only when people have personality differences.  How about being longsuffering and patient as people learn to leave behind the culture of the world and become part of a brand new culture—the kingdom of God?  You don't become righteous overnight, turning it on and off like a light switch!
            So maybe those converts crack a few eggs to smithereens now and then.  After all, it takes a little finesse to crack eggs.  Instead of expecting chef-quality cooking from the get-go, how about just asking this question:  Are they still making cookies?  Are those cookies getting better and better with each try?  If they are, the finesse will come later.  Be patient, just like the Lord was, and probably still is, patient with you.
 
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love (Eph 4:1-2).

The recipe for those cookies can be found on the recipe page on the left sidebar.
 
Dene Ward

Back when we used to have church get-togethers or potlucks or socials or whatever you want to call them, I noticed something that bothered me a lot.  If the gathering was at a home, usually the group split into two rooms—the living room or den, where most of the men gathered, and the kitchen, where most of the women gathered.  When you walked into the kitchen the talk was always of children, recipes, childbirth, or operations.  When you walked into the living room, you heard the Bible talk, and if you sat there long enough you sometimes got lost in the deep waters.
            Well, a woman's life centers on her home and family, you say, so that's what she talks about.  But tell me what a man's life centers around?  His job and family, yet still they were talking Bible, and not just Bible facts and stories and verses, but theology as well.  Still, I don't believe this was all the women's fault.  Somehow or other, we have all been raised to believe that theology is a man's field.  Women not only wouldn't be interested, they can't handle the depth, we were told, if not in words, then in attitudes.  "All that Bible stuff is men's business."
            Nonsense!  Lydia McGrew comes to mind immediately.  Look her up if you don't know the name.  Another thing is that everywhere I have lived, women have come to my classes—classes that are not your usual home and family women's classes.  I have given them things to learn that will leave a few men in the dust.  Some women leave my classes because of it, but the ones that stay can give the men in the church a run for their money when it comes to understanding theological concepts.  I am so proud of them all I could burst!  Just the other day we discussed paroimias in one class and imputation in the other. 
            Ladies!  God expects us to be good wives, homemakers, and mothers, yes, but he also expects us to, as good stewards, use our brains for the deeper things of his Word.  Remember all those verses that say, "Examine," "Search," "Reason," and "Learn?"  Those are not meant just for the men; they are for you, too.  And let's be honest about this--even if it should not be, it is often the women who are the spiritual leaders in the home, the ones who get the children ready to go to church, who schedule other things around the assembly rather than missing it, who help the kids with their Bible lessons, who read their own lessons while their husbands watch ball games or go fishing.  If that is the case in your home, it is more imperative than ever that you learn more than the standard prooftexts and slogans.  It is up to you to dig deeper in the Word.
            You can do the deep stuff, and it's not only interesting, it's fun!   You can be the example your children need, even if they get no other.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
 
The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes (Neh 10:28-29).
Dene Ward