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Not for Ladies - Just for Men

The Christian Home
by Dr. Don Green

Dr. Don Green was the pastor of Parker Memorial Baptist Church in Lansing, Michigan for more than 60 years. He graduated to glory in February of 2022.

      I don’t know if it would be apropos to preach what I am preaching tonight, but I am an old man. I am not smarter than anybody else, but I have had a lot of experience in raising a family for God. If you think I am bragging, you have got the wrong impression.
      I got married the first time in 1948 and my wife and I went to a little hotel, and rented a room for our first night together. We had had no relationships immorally at all before that night. I said to her, “Let’s kneel down here alongside this bed and let’s dedicate our lives to Christ, our marriage to Christ, and ask God for children.” And so, I made a prayer akin to this, I can’t remember exactly what I said, but something like: “Dear Lord, Winnie and I are just married this afternoon, and we would like to have children and raise a family for you dear Lord. I don’t expect a lot out of my life. I don’t ever care to be rich or famous or anything of that nature, but if you just give us children and let them be saved and serve the Lord, that would be all the pay I would ever want for preaching all my life. You have me Lord, if you would just do that for me.”
      One by one we had children. Altogether, we had six children. One of them preached last night, Brother Tim. Steve, he just died and went to Heaven a few years ago. He was my assistant pastor for 42 years. Now, I want to show you how wonderful God is. Johnny was the third boy, and Johnny is in fulltime Christian service preaching all over all the time. Then, my boy, Danny lives in Nova Scotia, and he pastors a church there. Then my boy Jimmy, and his wife and girls just sang, and he is now pastor of the church that I have been pastoring for 62 years. I am telling you now, God blessed me in answer to that prayer!
      Then, we had a little girl. Little Mary came along last. She surrendered her life to go to the mission field, and she died with cancer, bless her soul, over there on the other side of the world. That is not the end of my story. I asked God for children, and I asked Him if they would serve God that would be the only thing I would ever want.
      Now, I have got 10 grandboys that are ordained Baptist preachers. I have three or four grandgirls that are married to Baptist preachers, and I have got two or three more that are waiting to be married to a Baptist preacher, and now I have got more than that. I have got some great grandchildren that are Baptist preachers and a great grandgirl that is married to a Baptist preacher. Oh, the dear Lord has been so good to this old preacher.
      I want to tell you something. God is everything that He claims to be. He is a covenant keeping God even in this year, this century. If you commit yourself to God, there is no telling what He will do. I want to talk to you about the Christian home for a little bit. I have had a blessing in my life, and I want to share it with you, and I hope I am not offensive. I might be a little bold in my remarks, but I trust it may help you.
      “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
      The Bible called this man a wise man. When you are wise, you will seek God to help you raise your family for God. Now don’t take me wrong. I say a lot of abrasive things, but like I said, I made a prayer to God sincerely from my heart. If you want help raising your children you need to come to Him. Sometimes, you may have difficult children, rebellious; sometimes, just brats, and it is hard to raise those children. They can be stubborn and rebellious and hard to get along with. But you ask God for wisdom. If any of you lack wisdom, let them ask of God. He will help you. He will help you.
      It says that this man built his house. When you talk about building a house you are talking about doing some pretty hard work to physically build a house. But it not only takes hard work for building it structurally, it also requires hard work, and God’s wisdom, and fervent prayer to build it spiritually, building your house on a rock, a solid foundation. No other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. You know that is true. That foundation standeth sure.
      This man built his house upon the rock. Well the rains descended. Now, you can’t stop the rain from falling on you and on your house. Storms are coming. You can’t stop them, but you can prepare for those periods of rainy days. Not only rainy days, but sometimes rainy weeks and rainy months. It says, “then the floods came.”
      I really like what Isaiah said. “When the enemy comes in like a flood, raise your standard against him.” And the winds blew, and it didn’t just blow, it blew hard and beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat on that house, trying to destroy that home and that family. But the house fell not because it was built right on the rock; not only physically, but scripturally so and spiritually so. With God’s help, He saw to it that all the efforts of Satan could not stop and break and beat that house to death.
      But of course, the foolish man’s house wasn’t built on the rock. It didn’t have the same solid foundation. “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”
      I just want to say to you, don’t be offended at what I am going to say, but if you lose your home and you lose your children to this damnable hell-bound world, you have lost it all. You know that I am telling the truth. I like to be honest about things, and you talk about a storm. You talk about putting your whole life on a rock, putting your family on a rock, and building on a sure foundation. There is a storm of liberalism, a storm of socialism, a storm of humanism, a storm of new-age movement, revolution, internationalism, globalism, abomination, abortion, free love, gay rights, children’s rights, ERA. Oh brother, I think about that environmental bunch of screwballs. Socialized medicine, Obamacare, shacking up in adultery, rock music, beer drinking, nakedness, Hollywood movies, ungodly clothes, freakish hairstyles, and Jesse Jackson with his rainbow coalition, and this mix of cultures and races. You say, “I don’t agree with you.” Who cares! I am going to leave right after church, and you can just do what you want to do!
      But when you build your home and family on the rock, your home will withstand the storms. A foolish man didn’t consider the wisdom of that wise man, and that foolish man didn’t consider the word of God. God said, “..these sayings of mine.” That foolish man didn’t consider the worth of a sure foundation. He built on the sand, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure. That foolish man didn’t consider the wrath of the storm, the power of that storm, that rain, that flood, that wind that beat on his house. That foolish man didn’t consider the weight of his loss. It said in our scripture, “...great was the fall of it.” When you build your home, and you build your family, and you are building it on a sure foundation, it will amount to something.
      Now listen to me. Number one, this is kind of a corny outline, but it works. Put your house on the rock. Secondly, get your house under lock and key to keep some things out. You might want to keep some things in, and you want to keep things from getting in your family. I don’t know what you do at your place. When I was a kid, we didn’t lock the doors. I’m talking 80-90 years ago. The lock that my dad had on the front door was on the screen, and it was a nail that he had bent over, and that was the lock for the house, but boy you better keep things under lock and key nowadays. I am not just talking about a lock on the door, though it does have a little sense of security when you turn that little deadbolt before you go to bed and you feel like they are going to have a little trouble getting into your house if they want to steal something. But you want to protect your family from the curse of this land.
      I know I am from the old school; the old school is a good school. The old school is the School of Hard Knocks, and our school colors were black and blue. Those are good school colors! Now don’t be lazy, I want you to turn with me to Deuteronomy 7:26. Fifth book of the Bible, and I want you to take your ballpoint pen or highlighter and mark it so that you remember this verse. “Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.” (Deuteronomy 7:26) I raised my family in the 60s.’ Maybe Tim is 68 years old, Jim is the youngest boy at 57, and Mary was 50 when she died.
      What are you saying? The 60s when those blasted, lowdown, rat-fink hippies came to this country, and you know what they had in mind? They had in mind raping America, destroying the home, and they were successful. I am anti-hippie. I preached so hard against the hippies that you can’t believe it. You know, they wore hair all over their face, their long hair, and I preached against all that stuff. I still do because it was a symbol against the establishment. It’s not now, but it was. It was a badge that they wore along with those flared pants and wire-rimmed glasses. You say, “Oh Brother Green, why don’t you look over things like I look at it.” I could see what those lowdown, rat-fink hippies were trying to do was to ruin and take a generation of young people right off the street of America, and they were successful. Those people that were at one time the hippies are now Presidents of the United States, and governors and judges and mayors and so on.
      I know I am outspoken, but if you want to salvage your home, let me say this. You’ve got to keep some things out of your home, like rock music. You have got to keep that filthy rock music out. Go ahead and let them listen to it on the radio or television, and you’ll find out the hard way they are brainwashing your children in your own house against God! Against church! Against Jesus! Against your parental authority.
      You say, “Oh, Brother Green, I just listen to soft rock.” Have you ever gotten hit by a soft rock? Those hippies brought in beer, drugs, dope, perversion of sex, and you can’t let that stuff get into your house and into the hearts and minds of your children. Now, you may think I am a little screwball, but I got some results. I’ve got to enjoy my children serving God!
      I wouldn’t allow a hippie in my house. You say, “Well, …..” Just shut up and let me do the preachin’. About 45 to 50 years ago, I threw the damnable television out. I wouldn’t allow it in my home. That was when I Love Lucy was at her best, but when it started getting wicked, I threw the dumb thing right out, and it has never come back into my house. You say, “How do you get along without the television?” Just fine! You say, “I know but….” You know, it is because you are worldly. “Well it’s got a button on it and I can shut it off.” You would wear it out. You say, “Well, we got a VCR.” VCR stands for very closely related! I want to tell you that God will help you, but you have got to do something about it yourself and keep all that garbage out of your house. All that internet trash.
      All those baggy pants. Those blue jeans on those girls, their slacks, and their shorts, the tight ones and the tinted hair. As somebody said, “Well young people don’t wear clothes now, they wear costumes.” Now that I read you what Moses said in Deuteronomy, don’t allow it in the house. You say, “I would have so much rebellion on my hands. I have already got it in my home, so how am I going to get it out?” If anybody lacks wisdom, let them ask of God. Just be careful what comes in.
      I heard a story about this farmer and he had 15 turkeys He was so proud of those 15 full-grown turkeys, and anybody that would come visit the house he would take them to the back yard and show them those 15 turkeys. They were in a chicken-wire fence. One day he went out there and there was 18 turkeys. He counted them. He said, “Now, where did they come from?” Well, the next day when he came out, now listen to me, there were no turkeys. Those three wild-game turkeys got up underneath that fence somehow and showed all those other turkeys how to get out of there. You let those turkeys in your house, and the first thing they will show your kids is how to get out of the protection you’ve placed around your home!
      You say, “Well, I don’t like the way you preach Brother Green.” I don’t know how much time I’ve got, but I want to say a lot, and I wanted to tell you first, get your house on the rock, keep it under lock, and thirdly, stay in the flock. Stay in the church, the flock. Go to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and every time the doors are open. You say, “Well I don’t know.” Go ahead fool! The wise man, he knew what to do, but the fool he didn’t know what to do. That wise man was not telling his kids that church doesn’t mean anything. “You can go if you want and you can stay home if you want, and you can go to Aunt Toony’s for Sunday, and forget the whole thing if you want to. Just do whatever you want.” No, no, that is not the way to raise children for God. They need to go to church. Jim, you were never threatened about going to church, were you? You went to church. Why did you go to church? Because we went to church! Everybody went to church. There was no quarrel about it, no fighting about it. We are going to church.
      You say, “Brother Green, it sounds simple.” We went to church. My mother and dad were Godly people, and I mean absolutely Godly. I am not trying to be smart-alecky, but I cannot remember one Sunday in 89 years of not being in church on Sunday. It has helped me. I have stayed in the ministry. I have pastored where I am now almost 62 years. I was in the ministry six years before that so I have almost 70 years in the ministry. I have been bad off. I don’t want to complain, but I couldn’t walk, and I still can’t hardly walk. Our church had a bus with a little wheelchair lift on it, and he would come and get me and take me to church. I would go to church, go to church, go to church when I didn’t feel like it, and I could sense in my head, I know why people don’t go to church when they don’t feel like it, but I am going to go anyway. To Hell with you Devil! You are not telling me what to do. You have a little grit in your craw and a little sand in your pants, you will do what you are supposed to do whether all Hell freezes over.
      You say, “Brother Green, you are wild!” I don’t mean to be, but my children are all serving God today. I want to help you protect your home and family, too. My children went to church every single service. You know it’s such an important thing, and it is where your children are going to get saved, and if they get saved, 99% of them will get saved at church. If they don’t go to church, they won’t get saved.
      That is something else that needs to be said, and I am going to say it. A lot of you folks have lost your children to the world. They are out there right now, and they are not serving God. Some of those kids didn’t get saved. Don’t get upset with me. You cannot save your children, but Christians are so anxious for their children to get saved that they ‘save’ their kids. “Now, if you say this little prayer, you will become a Christian, and if you get baptized you will become a Christian.” NO!!!!! Without a conviction, there will be no conversion! Do you believe that?
      You say, “Well what happened to my boy?” “He was such a fine little Christian boy living in our home, and now he is not so well.” When you get saved, the Holy Ghost comes inside, and it will hold you and keep you, and convict you if you begin to drift.
      Now, you don’t have to agree with me, but I am an old-timer, and I have some convictions and standards and things that are wrapped up in my mind. I read 10 chapters in my Bible every day, and I have been doing it for 65 years. I have read my Bible through almost 190 times. I know what is in that Book. I know that if you don’t go to church you are probably not saved. I grant you, there are handicaps and there are things that keep people out of church. I am not a dumdum. You don’t pastor a church for 70 years if you don’t have a little compassion on people that don’t come to church. But if you don’t have any desire to go to church, in my eyes, you probably aren’t saved. If you don’t have enough religion to take you to church, I doubt if you have got enough to take you to Heaven.
      In church your son or daughter is going to get settled and learn the Bible and will learn how to serve God, maybe in a bus route or maybe in a Sunday School class. How old were you when you started teaching Sunday School? Fourteen! I was sixteen when I started teaching Sunday School. You say, “Well, that was pretty young.” Well, it might be, but I am still serving God! It is your life. Do what you want to do. Have what you want to have. God will help you if you will settle down and obey what God says. Church is a place where you gain spiritual strength. I just want to tell you this in kindness, if you don’t have enough religion to keep you faithfully in church serving God, I doubt if you are saved. I know that going to church doesn’t save you, but if you are saved, you will want to go to church.
      This is my fourth point. Put it on a rock, put the door on it locked, stay in the flock, and put your children in dry dock. Now the dry dock has to do with when they take boats and ships and put them in dry dock and they repair what needs fixed, and they prepare and build those in dry dock. So, when they get out into the storms of life, on the stormy sea, that ship will be seaworthy. It won’t go down in the storms. I am just being nice about it. You can’t send your kids to the public school and expect them to turn out alright. Now maybe one out of a million, maybe yours are different than everybody else’s, but there is turmoil, strife, riot, rebellion, humanism, dope, drink, and dirty sex, and there are all sorts of communism, humanism, atheism, vulgarity, ungodly dress, evolution, and anti-American. I doubt very much if there are very many American/patriotic kids in our public schools. They are already trained in internationalism. They have been brainwashed by these fuzzy teachers who got brainwashed by fuzzy professors in colleges, and they are brainwashing your precious little baby girls and boys!
      Put them in dry dock! Put them in a Christian school or home-school them. You say, “I don’t agree with you.” Who cares! I am right and you are wrong. You say, “You are cocky.” I’m not really. Solomon said it, “A three-fold cord is not quickly broken.” You have a Christian home, a Christian education, and an old-fashioned Baptist church. I kept these little strips when I preached this sermon; these are just three little strands. If I take one of them like this, I can just break it just like that, but if I put these three strands together, I’ve got a Christian home, a Christian church, and a Christian school or home-school. When I wrap these together they are not going to be easily broken. The three-fold cord is much stronger. Oh, you say, “You are crazy.” I may be a little nuts, but I am screwed to the right bolt.
      Fifthly, build a roadblock against Satan. Just don’t let Satan in. You see your child losing interest. You see your husband growing a little cold, you see your wife getting worldly minded, and you see other people trying to influence your family and hinder them from being faithful to church like football, basketball, baseball, little league games and wanting to go to ballgames on Sundays and Wednesday nights. You are a fool! My kids are all athletic, the whole bunch of them. We are all Detroit Tiger fans, the whole kit and caboodle, and we are Spartan fans of Michigan State.
      My dad knew how to raise kids. He raised me a Tiger fan! He would say, “Don, lets go fishing today.” “Don, lets go in the back yard and play catch.” He spent time doing things together, and when it was time for church, we went to church together. That is how you raise kids. If you lose your family, you lost it all. So, you build a roadblock against all this foolishness by praying your way through it all. Submit yourself therefore to God. Resist! That means, “Get out of here devil, I hate you! You are not going to have my boy. You are not going to have my girl. I won’t put up with it.”
      My boy that preached last night, Tim, he is greatly used of God all over this country. When he was about 20 years old, I was at church on Wednesday preparing the message for Wednesday night, and the phone rang at the church. We lived two blocks away from the church, and we had it rigged so that the church phone had an extension at the house so we didn’t miss any church calls.
      Well I picked it up in the office and he picked it up at home. He didn’t know I was on the line. They were talking about being somewhere where they were drinking beer and having a wild get together somewhere, and it broke my heart. “Oh God, I didn’t raise my boy for the devil.” I just fell on the floor and laid on my face and cried a million tears. “Oh God, Oh God, my boy has gone out in the world. God, You do what you want to do, and Devil, you can’t have my boy. I didn’t raise him for you, you low down slough. Get out of my life, devil, and get out of that boy’s life” Then I would pray a little more, and then I would get after the devil, and I cried and prayed.
      You say, “You are crazy Brother Green!” How crazy am I? That was on Wednesday night, and I was preaching, and he was in church. Twenty years old and in community college. He was sitting in the back, and as I was preaching, right in the middle of my sermon, he walked right on down and stood right there by the pulpit and said, “Dad, I want to tell you that I am not saved and I need to get saved.”
      I said, “Would you mind, folks, just for a minute.” I got down out of the pulpit and down on the altar and showed him how to get saved.
      Well about three months later, I was in bed and it was about 10 o’clock. He got home, and he always came home and would knock on the bedroom door and say, “I’m home.” He was a good boy. He said, “Dad, will you come to my bedroom? I want to talk to you”
      I said, “Sure, sure son.” I went in his room and said, “Son, what is the matter?”
      He said, “I am right back doing the same blasted things that I was doing before. I am not saved dad.”
      I said, “Would you like to be?”
      He said, “Oh boy, yes.”
      So, I got down there and I went through the plan of salvation, and he acknowledged it and he had made a prayer. I said, “Tim, do you feel any different?”
      He said, “No.”
      I said, “Do you know why? Because you didn’t really mean it.” You don’t play fool with God. He don’t fool around. When you mean business with God, He will mean business with you. So he made another prayer, and he got gloriously saved. Yahoo!
      Tim had planned on going to college in another city, a state college. One day he reached into the glove compartment of his car, and a ballpoint pen rolled out into his hand and it said, Midwestern Baptist College. It was that college that Tom Malone had in Pontiac, Michigan. Tim said, “That is where I am going to go to college.” He went to college and got called to preach there. If I didn’t have this wheelchair, I’d run the aisle! Woohoo! You say, “Oh you’re crazy.” I know it, but who cares?
      I just wanted to tell you. Don’t give up on those children. Make a prayer. Don’t just make a little prayer, but make prayer to God. God is still in the prayer hearing and prayer answering business. My son is serving God today in answer to prayer. I heard him preach last night and he did a wonderful job. It is your life, your family. Build it on the rock of God’s word.
      I am going to have to say this, and then I am done. Put up a roadblock. The devil is not the boss! God is the boss. Tell that devil where to head out.
      The sixth thing is don’t go into shock. No matter what anybody else does, people leave the church and they make you feel bad because they leave the church. Keep on and don’t quit. Don’t get discouraged. Your family needs you to keep serving God and keep praying and keep standing for right.
      You can raise your children to have God’s blessing on them, but you need to build your house on the rock. Get your home under lock. Stay in the flock. Put your children in dry dock. Build a roadblock by way of prayer, and just don’t ever quit.