The greatest remorse that a man or woman can have in this life – after loss of their opportunity with God – is loss of their opportunity with their children, followed by loss of their opportunity with their wife or husband.
Those three losses – with God, with children, with spouse – is the very reason God put it into my heart to found this ministry. There is absolutely no calling greater, no ministry more urgent, no mission more desperate in today’s world than that of doing all one can to protect a person from any one of these losses. I begin this message with a fervent prayer that God will work in your heart to heed this message and to do all that is in your power to redeem your time with your God, with your children and with your wife or husband, from this day on. (Though the title addresses fathers, mothers can also gain much insight from this message, which they can use to help their husbands redeem their time with their children.)
I will be repeating this sentence often in my various messages in this website and on the associate World Daily Bread website:
The greatest cause for all the evils in this world today, and the one cause that all societies and governments should focus on eradicating above every other evil in this world, is that the hearts of the fathers are not turned to their children, and therefore the hearts of the children are not turned to their fathers!
Please read that again.
The continuance or total annihilation of this world in the sooncoming years hinges, not on the nuclear war factor, not on food availability, not on global climate changes – but on whether the hearts of the fathers will be turned to their children and the hearts of the children will be turned to their fathers. Let God’s Word convince you of this truth.
And he [the messenger whom God will sent in the last days] will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Mal 4:6
The word ‘curse’ in the original Hebrew is ‘cherem’, which more accurately means ‘extermination’, or ‘utter destruction’. And this is how it is translated in several other versions of the Bible.
He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction. NIV
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; otherwise I will come and strike the land with complete destruction. CJV
‘the land’ is more accurately translated as ‘the earth’ in the King James Version and New King James Version, as well as in other translations such as the Geneva Bible, Knox Bible, Orthodox Jewish Bible, etc.
he it is shall reconcile heart of father to son, heart of son to father; else the whole of earth should be forfeit to my vengeance. Knox Bible
Mercifully, in his great love, God will ensure that his servants worldwide will focus on this aspect of their ministry above every other aspect – of course, after the message of eternal salvation through Christ is first preached.
There is a great attempt by Satan to influence churches and ministries worldwide to focus more on the physical and financial wellbeing of God’s people, more on happiness, more on success, more on doctrinal and parochial church issues. And many servants of God have fallen into the devil’s snare. They are not preaching the wrong gospel – Satan is too smart to try to change the minds of Christ’s servants to abandon the Gospel altogether. They are just neglecting that aspect of the gospel which, if heeded by fathers, would save the world from total destruction. And this, Satan knows, is the best way to ensure that his own reign on earth can be extended. With mankind destroyed, God will have to devise another plan to populate earth again, as he did in Noah’s days, and with no one existing anymore who can qualify to take over his kingship, he can continue as the undisputed ruler of this world.
And why is this aspect, the turning of the hearts of the fathers, so absolutely vital for the salvation of this world?
Look at the evils and wickedness in this world. Next time, you see a man or woman on the street, in your workplace, who displays a profane behavior, look at that person carefully and ponder deeply. How did that person come to behave like that, while you just can never even think of doing such a thing?
Two days before I began to write this message, I found myself in a queue at a supermarket checkout counter. It was moving very slow, as were all the queues at the other counters. A woman came and stood behind me, and then, leaving her grocery basket where she stood, she went back to the stalls. In her short absence, another woman came with her big cart and stood behind me. The first woman returned and took her rightful position. There was an altercation. The second woman was flushing in anger, and she made me the arbitrator and judge – had the first woman really stood behind me before she came? I said yes. The second woman stomped away still flushing, and, I think, cursing me too.
Now ponder. What would a Christian woman do? I know what my wife, or scores of other women I know, would do. If she was the first woman, on being objected to coming back to her place, she would smile, even say a needless ‘sorry’ and take her undeserved position behind the second woman. Now, if she was the second woman, on seeing another woman coming and standing ahead of her, she would merely take a step or two back to make it more convenient for the first woman to squeeze in. Simple. But absolutely impossible for a woman or man whose heart has not been turned to their father in their younger days.
A child whose heart has been neglected by his or her father in their molding years is the most desirable prey for the spiritual vultures hovering over every home in every nation on world. This child may have everything else a parent can provide for: security, a beautiful home, excellent nutrition, peaceful environment, quality schooling, and even quality time with parents. In the midst of all these fine and caring circumstances, the child’s heart will still be easily turned away from es father and start turning to the heart of another father.
I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father. Jn 8:38,41
The heart will never remain for long unturned and neutral. If the child’s heart is not turned to his or her father, they will then surely do what they see their substitute father does.
All the impolite behaviors in the public places, the deadly road rages, the divorces, the murders, all the perverted desires, all the fornications, all the dishonesties, and all other evil characteristics of an adult have their origin in a young child whose heart was neglected by his or her own father and taken over by the father of this world.
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Jn 8:44
The consequences of a neglected heart are not confined to the home or the immediate community. They sweep devastatingly through boundaries and wreak havoc on a national and global scale. Every single one of all the wars that ever happened in this world’s history, including World Wars 1 and 2, can be traced down to the heart of just one child that absorbed the desires of his spiritual father.
Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Jm 4:1
Now, secular parenting authorities and family counselors have come to realize through their own observation and research that the absence of father in the home is a root cause for society’s great many ills. And so they have come up with solutions such as fathers spending ‘quality time’ with their kids. They advise working parents to ‘prioritize’ the family over their work. They may even counsel teaching children some ‘real values’ – although I wonder how those counselors who believe that the first offsprings on earth have their origin in copulative accidents among primeval life-forms eons ago, can understand anything about ‘real’ values.
As the editor of a parenting magazine many years ago, on several occasions I hosted forums where parents and noted counselors met together in a forum. I noted that when it came to offering medical and general counsel relating to a child’s health and wellbeing, these sychologists, doctors and parenting authorities offered sound advice. But when parents would ask about some ‘moral’ issue’ their kids were facing, some of them would proffer ‘scientifically proven’ remedies, some of which, to my shock, included encouraging children to fantasize acts of fornication, which is what actually happens in youngsters’ minds when they sexually gratify themselves.
Listen to this reasoning behind such recommendation, as expressed by a noted female sychologist in that forum: If a mosquito bites your child, and he feels an irresistible itch on some part of his body, would you prevent him from scratching that area for relief? In the same way, you should not prevent him from finding relief from his sexual tension through self-release.
Of course, wise parents know what happens to that relieved child when he becomes a teen. Everytime he feels the itch in his loins, he seeks relief from any available source near him. The seeds of fornication and adultery are sown in little kids who are not constantly guided out of their natural itches and inclinations by Godly parents.
To my understanding, and in all my research, I have not come across any secular parenting magazine or book in the world that emphasizes what I am emphasizing in this message. Books by Christian authors do cover this subject to a lesser or greater extent, yet on the whole such publications are a minuscule percentage of the media that influence parents’ relationship with their children.
Oh, at the time of writing this, one of the most popular ways that parents express love to their kids, and in the process inadvertently teach them profane values, is by turning the tender hearts over to wizards and witches. Stronger influences have been imprinted in the minds of our present generation of teens in a typical modern ‘Christian’ home, especially in the developed nations, by books and shows such as Harry Potter and MTV than by all that they have learned in Sunday School and church youth camps. I am referring especially to those homes that have a Bible somewhere on a shelf, but where the children are gifted with books glorifying wrong spirits, and where they are not prohibited from watching squirmy scenes and hear squalid lyrics on tv.
Even as the devil is hyperactive in this endtimes in turning the hearts of children in every nation to him, our Father in heaven is working urgent works through his servants worldwide to turn the hearts of the children to their rightful fathers. God does this by first turning the hearts of the fathers to him, and then, after they have established a right relationship with their heavenly Father, by inspiring them to turn their hearts to their children.
It is not enough that you daily take an hour off from your work and other pursuits to sit with your child to spend quality time with him. Turning your heart to your child means, firstly, having a certain attitude toward him or her every moment of your waking and sleeping hours. What is this attitude?
It is the attitude where you are constantly conscious of God’s Law – summarized in The 10 Commandments – in your every thought, word, and action. It is the love for God and his way of life that emanates with a holy radiance from every cell in your body, which is quickly absorbed by the rest of your family.
A home where dad shows his close relationship with God in all that he speaks and does is the home where Jesus Christ himself is thrilled to be a constant member of. He rejoices in hearing every sentence father utters to his wife and children, and in seeing every act he performs toward them. God and his laws are dad’s favorite theme for conscious and subconscious meditation, not just at fixed quiet times, but throughout the day, wherever he may be.
Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Ps 119:97
Secondly, turning your heart to your children means speaking to them of God’s way of life, and his truths in the Bible, and encouraging them to imitate you in zealously observing The 10 Commandments in all its broad life applications. It means taking time to narrate the stories in the Bible, to explain how to live by God’s laws in every situation the child faces. It means slowly raising your child’s level of understanding so he can begin to see the need for his Savior, and understand why his Savior had to die for him, and how he can constantly live a righteous life by Christ dwelling in him through the Holy Spirit.
You will sit down often with your child, and explain to him that all the evils are happening in the world today because people have not been taught God’s way by their parents. You will place much emphasis on explaining the consequences of breaking each of The 10 Commandments.
As your child grows into teenhood and enters the world of puberty, you should focus more on the 7th Commandment, and how the breaking of this commandment by the world in general (and you can give the divorces and extramarital relationships in Hollywood as prime examples) is breaking up homes and children’s lives everywhere.
You dont do this just at any specific pre-determined hour, although there certainly must be at least one pre-determined family hour every day. You do it wherever you get the opportunity.
So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. Deut 11:18-21 NLT
Fathers, if your children are still with you, blessed are you, for you have the greatest opportunity – literally the greatest opportunity of any man or woman in the sight of God – to contribute to saving this world from total annihilation in these end times. But infinitely more important, you have the opportunity to turn your children’s heart to his or her God so that they can be greatly blessed and their blessing will continue to your grandchildren and great grandchildren even to thousands of generations descending from you and your wife.
There is little time left before world events take a dramatic turn for the worse. The devil knows it, and he is working extra hard to turn the hearts of the fathers away from their children. But God is not watching passively as the world races toward self-destruction. He is working in awesome ways globally to turn back the hearts of the children to their parents. He has sent the spirit of Elijah into the hearts of many of his servants worldwide.
Remember the Law of Moses [The 10 Commandments], My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse [total destruction]. Mal 4:4-6
A great turning of hearts among millions of fathers and children is already taking place all over the world. Is your heart among them?
Pappa Joseph
Pappa Joseph 