 I've always regretted that. That was very sweet of you, John. I kind of surprised that you said that. Guys, it's a blessing to have you with us. We're going to have a good, good morning, aren't we? The Lord's going to move. He really is. If you'd like, you can open your Bibles to 1 Kings, 1 Kings chapter 2. And as you're doing so, we have these magazines. They're free. And perhaps some of you don't know some of the history of Calvary Chapel ministry. And if you'd like to pick one up, I think we have some left over. We had a number of them. Most of them are gone, but if you'd like one, please take one. It's for you. Just leave $100 behind. What I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to be speaking out of 1 Kings. But I want to highlight, and just giving you an introduction, a highlight that really is going to be directed in its conclusion to us as fathers. And that's going to be what I really want to share. And so I'm going to do something different. And some of you who go to our fellowship will recognize this is different. This isn't the way I normally teach. But I really felt that I should put together a different kind of style of study. And again, you'll see that as we go into our message today. But I'm going to begin by reading out of 1 Kings 2 verses 1-4, if you opened your Bibles to that portion. That's what I'll be reading from. And so in 1 Kings 2, beginning at verse 1, the days of David drew near that he should die. And he charged Solomon, his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth, be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may fulfill his word, which he spoke concerning me, saying, if your sons take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, he said, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. So at this point, I want to take some time to develop what I want to share with you. And I'll begin by saying it this way. We're in the middle of a war, and it seems that many don't even realize it. The world that we're in is spiritual in nature, and the battle is for our minds. The combatants are Christians, and we're battling Satan and his forces. Now, every war has a goal, every war has something that is being fought for, and Satan's goal is to continue controlling man, resulting in our destruction. He knows his fate is the lake of fire, and he wants to take everyone with him. Now, God's goal is to set Satan's captives free, which is why Jesus came. In Luke 4.18, he said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to tell the good news to the poor, to announce forgiveness to the prisoners of sin, and the restoring of sight to the blind, and to forgive those who have been shattered by sin. So Jesus came to give his life for us, and he came to give us life in him by having faith in him. Every military force has commanders who develop combat strategies, and that means that Satan, as our enemy, has ancient strategies, and he's eroding the three building blocks of human civilization. He's undermining the church, he's undermining human government, and he's undermining marriage. And each of these institutions is under constant attack. The church has been infiltrated with false teachers and false believers, and some churches are entertainment centers with cowardly pastors who won't speak the truth, teach the word of God, and bring conviction to those who are listening. Government officials have legalized drugs, mis-spent trillions of dollars, given special favor to people they agree with, pass useless mask mandates to keep people in fear, permitted men entrance to women's bathrooms and locker rooms, mandated shots for COVID, shut down small businesses, closed churches, closed schools, told people not to gather for holidays, and even advised people to stop singing worship songs in church. The damage they did to children emotionally and educationally, as well as people in general, has been incredible. At the same time, bars and strip clubs and tattoo parlors were allowed to remain open. As ordinary citizens, we were told not to go out for dinner while they themselves continued doing so because their rules don't apply to them. And look what they've done to California as a result of that. This was once a beautiful state. The strongest attack has been against traditional marriage and family. And one aspect of the attack has been centered on marriage. In 2008, a proposition was being debated throughout our state. It was centered on homosexual marriage. It was called, some of you might remember, it was called Prop 8. Now, that was the logical outcome of our nation's rejection of traditional family. You see, marriage and its meaning has slowly been redefined. At that time, back in 2008, I gave a study and I told our church what the true goal was. The goal was not equality. It was an effort to legitimize homosexuality. Homosexual activists wanted to destigmatize homosexuality through law. There was no real need to make homosexual marriage legal, according to Family Code 297.5 under California law. Homosexual marriage partnerships had the same rights, protections, and benefits of married couples. Homosexuals didn't want the same rights. They wanted the same moral standing. I said that homosexuals were trying to make a moral wrong into a civil right. As a small group, they were presenting themselves as a minority. Now, many believe that their numbers are much greater than they actually are. According to UCLA School of Law, Williams Institute in the United States, 3.5 identify as LGB and only 0.3 tenths of a percent are transgender. But they're claiming minority status. They say they're victims of discrimination. At first, they said this. They said that their struggle was the same as African-Americans. And that was absolutely wrong. But people didn't seem to understand that. As a group, they weren't denied access to restaurants, restrooms, housing, stores, voting. As a group, they weren't denied seats on buses, they weren't lynched by angry mobs bitten by dogs or shot with water hoses. They were never legally defined as 2 thirds of a person, never had theologians arguing as to whether they had a soul, and they were never sold into slavery. You may not know this, but in Chino, our city, Mexicans couldn't swim in the pool and schools were segregated in the 40s. Did you know that? My father-in-law and mother-in-law, my father-in-law was to go to a different school where only Mexicans were. And my mother-in-law, who is Mexican-Spanish, her father said, no, she's going to go to the white school. That was here in Chino. Mexicans, most of you couldn't go swimming in the pool for good reason. No, most of you couldn't. As a look out there, you probably should have once in a while. But in 1947, the decision of Mendes v. the Westminster Board of Education resulted in integrated schools in California. Eight years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Brown v. the Board of Education, and the decision was made based in part on Mendes v. Westminster. Most people don't know that. At that time, I said that the redefinition of marriage would be taught in our schools. You know, California law allows children as young as kindergarten to be taught about marriage. And I said that the result would be causing confusion to our children. In 2008, I said their lifestyles are tragic, and are a tragic result of circumstances and choices. There is no homosexual gene, and there are no homosexual babies. At one time, they spoke of their sexual preferences. And this made it clear that their orientation was a result of a series of choices. I still remember saying this. I said, and I actually cut out of my notes just to read exactly what I had said. As an ethnically Mexican man, I cannot decide to become Japanese. But I have ministered to men and women who have received Christ, have left the homosexual lifestyle, have gotten married, and have had children. Now, when I said that, it made sense 15 years ago. As a Mexican American, ethnically Mexican man, I cannot say right now that I'm Japanese or that I'm sweet or whatever, but that has changed in 15 years. In 15 years, men can now claim to be women, and women can claim to be men. We have a Supreme Court justice who can't define what a woman is. Men who compete in sports as women against biological women. Men who claim to have periods, and children undergoing radical gender reassignment surgeries. We even have a man posing as a woman who calls himself Rachel Levine as the Assistant Secretary of Health, the first transgender federal official to be confirmed by the United States Senate. That's happened in 15 years. It is incredible how quickly morals and societies can change. Our nation is dealing with broken homes, with broken children, with feminized men, masculinized women, and a hatred for men in general. We're now seeing open hostility to the Christian faith in sports. The Dodgers are planning to honor a group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence with a Community Hero Award before the June 16th game. These are a group who identify as queer and trans nuns and are known for mocking Christian beliefs, including holding an annual Foxy Mary and Hunky Jesus Contest, pole dancing on crosses, and their saying is go forth and sin some more. Our California Senate is choosing to honor this perverted group. Why isn't Buddha being mocked? Why isn't Krishna being mocked? Why is it okay to blaspheme Jesus and ridicule the Christian faith? Imagine what would have happened if they would have mocked Muhammad, but they don't. So I sent an email to the Dodger Organization expressing my opinion. I encourage you all to do the same. Let them know how you feel about that, because that's just wrong. And so what I want to do is I want to share a little bit with you with these things as a backdrop. I want to speak to us as men. And I really want to spend my morning time speaking to the fathers and what we should be doing at this time. And I would start by saying we need to wake up and we need to be aware that we're in a battle. And those of us who are fathers or grandfathers, we are in a battle for the souls of our children and our grandchildren. And we are as men. We are as men to stand up for what is right and to be examples of men who stand up for the truth, no matter what. We should stand up and say this is what we are willing to do and we will go no further. You cannot have my children. You cannot have my grandchildren. They belong to God and I'm going to protect them. I remember speaking to a young man about his daughter. And I asked him a question. This man was not a very good man, to be honest with you. He hadn't treated his wife right. And I knew him well enough to speak to him in this way. And I said to him this, because I knew him, I knew his family and all, and I said to him, you love your little girl, don't you? He had a daughter. And he said, yes. I said, you love her with all your heart, don't you? He said, yes, I do. I said, may I ask you a question? I said, what are you going to do when a man just like you shows up at the house to take her out? What are you going to do when somebody just like you is going to come and take your baby from you? What are you going to do? Because you know what he had done? He had done that to somebody else's daughter. What we need to do is we need to understand who we are. We need to understand what we are as men. And we need to understand in this time when it really is obvious that we have people saying that men aren't even necessary. I've heard women call men sperm donors. We don't need men. They don't need men until they drive a car. They don't need men until they go into their house. They don't need men until they want to eat. They don't need men until they climb on a road. They don't need men if there's, you know, unless there's a war. What do you mean we don't mean men? We don't need men. We men, we men are valued. Don't forget that. We are necessary. Don't forget that. Because a lot of guys are being dehumanized right now. They're thinking that they're not necessary. I want to speak to you as a man to men. You see, if we have sons, we should be the man that they one day want to be like. I remember speaking to a young man who said something to me I've never forgotten. He says, I don't want to be anything like my father. There's nothing about him that I want to be like. And that's one of the saddest things I could ever hear. With all of this going on, and all the influences that the world has on our families, what should we be aiming for? Well, I began by reading about King David. You see, in that passage, we have the opportunity of seeing David finish his race. We especially have the opportunity to see his dying instructions to his beloved son Solomon. Not every man has the opportunity of speaking to his son before he dies. Think about that for a moment. I've said this to our fellowship before. Perhaps some of you are from our church, most of you are. And maybe you've heard me say this before, but I'm living a life before my children so that the day comes when they speak concerning me and give the eulogy for their father who went to heaven. I want them to be able to speak things of me that are true and not make things up simply because it's not right to say there are four things about somebody who's died. I want them to be able to stand up in this pulpit here. Should it be this pulpit and say, this is the father that I had, the man you didn't know, but this is what he was really like. And to be able to speak the truth about me in a way that they wouldn't be ashamed or have to make something up that's nice concerning me. What would your son say about you? And what would your daughter say about you? If you were speaking to your children about these things, which I've spoken to mine, if you were speaking and sharing with them things concerning the last things that matter to you, what would you say? If you were on your deathbed and your son, especially your son, but your son or your daughter were there, and you began to open up, would they become uneasy? Would they become uneasy because they've never really had a conversation with you? And if they spoke at your funeral, what would they have to say about you? Would they say, well, the things he owned would be everything he ever thought about. He loved valuables. Or would he say, my dad really knew how to make money. He knew what to value, but he never valued me. Would they say my dad was good-looking and he had so many girls on the side? Too bad he didn't love my mom. Would he say my dad was a dedicated gym rat? Too bad I never saw him. Or my dad ruled the house. All he'd have to do is yell and my mom would jump. Wow, what a man. Would he say my dad said he was a Christian, but he never went to church? He told me he could worship God at home while he watched the game. And then they'll say this. They'll say, I think he's right. Why should I go to church? In Hebrews 10, 24, and 25, it says, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaken the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, resorting to one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. You see, the influence you have as a man on your children is amazing. I read that if a child gets saved, there's a 3.5% chance that others in the family will follow. If the mother is first to come to Christ, 17% of the house will follow. But if the father comes of faith first, 93% in the home will follow his lead. So how important is a father to his family and children? Now, my father was the most important man in my life. My dad's influence was great. My dad was a very quiet man by nature, but he had an example that was very powerful. And when he was on his deathbed, he gave my brother and me final instructions. He told us that he had a green tin box with his most important papers. He called them his special treasures. And so when he died, my brother opened up that little green tin box. And he expected to find life insurance papers or a deed to the house, some stocks, some bonds. When he opened the box, he found what was most important to my dad. He found cards that we had made for him when we were in elementary school with our handprints and our childish scrawl that read Happy Father's Day or Happy Birthday, Daddy. He found my baptism certificate. He found pictures of us when we were in elementary school. He found a clipping from a newspaper notice that announced my induction into the Army. He found my dad's wedding certificate. It ended a 53-year argument between my mom and my dad concerning their wedding anniversary. My mom said they were married October 5th. My dad said October 6th, and they were married October 5th. My mom was right for 53 years. What was the most telling thing that we didn't find? Again, we didn't find insurance papers. We didn't find a title deed. We didn't even find a bank book. My dad left no stocks. He left no bonds. He only had a $10,000 insurance policy. He left no CDUs, no motorcycles, no vacation home, no widescreen TVs, computers, electronic equipment. We found out what was most important to my dad. It was his god, his wife, and his children. So the question I would ask, even as I'm beginning, is what is the legacy you leave for your family? What is it that they will know you as a man valued? What is it that they'll say concerning you the day comes and it will come for all men unless the rapture comes first? And I pray for that, obviously. But one day they will stand in a pulpit just like this and they'll say, this is the man I knew that you never knew. What are they going to say about you? What are they going to say? What is your legacy? I asked my son Joseph that question one time. What is the most important thing that you're going to say about me? What is it in my life, Joseph, that you have seen that you would say will be the thing that you'll take into the rest of your life when I go to heaven? What is it, son? I want to know. I actually asked him so that I could do one of those report card things that a father sometimes should do. Am I failing or am I passing? So son, what is it? I said, what is the most important thing to me? And he said, Dad, you love the Lord. You love His word. You love us. That's the most important thing. I passed that test and I pray every day that I continue to. Can your son say that of you? Can your son say, you know what the most important thing to my dad is? He loves the Lord. He loves fellowship. He loves my mom and he loves us. That should be your goal. There's nothing more important than that is there. That's the most important thing. We need to take our God given responsibility seriously in these last days. We need to openly make it clear to our children that we love the Lord. We need to be spiritually and morally strong and we need to prove ourselves to be men. We need to take our stand. We need to hold our ground. We need to say without apology, as for me in my house, we shall serve the Lord. That's what we as men should be doing. My wife is not the spiritual leader of the home. I am. Many Christian homes have wives who lead by default. The wives lead in prayer. They give devotions. They choose the church to attend. They go to women's functions, fill up church retreats. They serve in ministry. And some churches would close the doors on a Sunday if women didn't show up. And that's not how it's supposed to be. You see, David knew that his race was about to end. And with that in mind, he gave his final orders to Solomon. He said, son, these are the things that will result in blessings in your life. Now, what is it he said? Well, he says, first, be strong, prove yourself a man. Now, Solomon is looking at King David. So when he says, son, be strong and prove yourself a man, Solomon had things he could think about with this man that he called dad. One of the more obvious things that he could think about was the fact that his dad took out Goliath. So when you think that, you know, my dad can beat up your dad, well, David could beat up everybody's dad. But that's not what he's talking about. Because when you speak about David and you say, what do you know about King David? Even people who've never read the Bible will mention two things. They will mention David and Goliath. But what is the other thing they remember? David and Bathsheba. David and Bathsheba. David could speak from authority and experience. Prove yourself to be a man. Not somebody who's out with other men's wives, but a man of God. Prove yourself to be a man who follows after the Lord, son. You see, life isn't easy. Battles have to be fought. Trust in God. Don't quit. You see, we men are our kids' heroes. We're their models of godliness and perseverance. I've said this before. I'll say it again. My children don't have to look outside of the house to find a hero. They live with one, and his name is dad. And that's what we ought to be, the heroes to our children. That's what God has called us to be. And so they look to us. And the Bible in Ephesians 6 verse 10 says, My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. So we need to be models of godliness and perseverance. He said, keep the charge of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. In other words, diligently obey what God has commanded you in his word. And that's not new information to Solomon. David had raised him in this manner. In Proverbs 4, 3, and 4, he had written, Solomon wrote, when I was my father's son, tender, and the only one in the side of my mother, he also taught me and said to me, Let your heart retain my words, keep my commands, and live. So son, I say this one last time. Keep the charge of the Lord your God. Now, David was evangelizing his son, encouraging him to know God as his God. You see, saving faith is something that they need to possess on their own, but we commit it to them. We can't believe on their behalf. So we do all we can to encourage them to know him. My son, David, and I were walking one time when my son was a little boy, maybe five, six years old, and we were walking in a forest. And as we were walking, it was at night, and we were looking up at the stars. And I said, son, I said, you see those stars? And he goes, yes, dad. I said, what do you think about those stars? How did they get there? He looks at me because he expects dad to give the answer. I said, those stars came because God put them there, son. We have a God who created this universe and take every opportunity that you can to share with your children while you can about the God that you serve. Live for Jesus Christ in front of them. Be honorable in front of them. Live in such a way that they'll say, that's the kind of man I want to be when I grow up. I don't care about the possessions. I don't care about the things of good looks and all the rest. Those things are okay. If you have them, you don't. That's fine, too. What I want is his heart. I want to live like my father lives. I want to name that is held in esteem by others. See, my dad was a small man, but he had a great reputation. People respected my dad. He was sober-minded, hard-working, honest. I never saw him look at another woman. This is a man whose heart was sold out to one woman for one lifetime. That was my dad. And the last thing I remember my dad saying, there are two last things I remember when he died. One, when I went to the hospital when he had had his heart attack, and when I went to the hospital, my mom stopped me before I went in to see him. And my mom said, David, your dad had a heart attack this morning. And I said, I know, mom. She said, well, let me tell you something. She said, when he had his heart attack, he had me call an ambulance to pick him up. And I was just listening to her. And she said to me, and you know what he did, son? And I said, what, mama? She said, he prayed. Well, I would expect that he would. My father had come to faith in Christ a long time before he died. Do you know what he prayed? No, mama, I don't. He said, father, take care of my wife. The last prayer my father ever prayed that I know of was for his wife. And the last word he ever said was when she came into the room for the last time. And she looked at him. And he couldn't speak anymore. And he simply called her by the name. He always called. He just looked at her and said, mama. And that was it. That's my legacy. Forgive me. That's my legacy. Love your wife. It's the last breath. Love her. I'm sorry for the emotion. It's been 22 years. You know, my dad died 22 years ago. And you can see the impact he still has on me. It's still there. It's still there. I want to be like my dad. I want to be like my dad. He says, walk in his ways. Not in your own ways. Walk in his ways. He said, keep his statutes. Receive with faith his guidelines for living. Keep his commandments. These are not suggestions. What he says, you are to do. Keep his judgments. He has determined what is good. What is evil. So obey him. Keep his testimonies. Bear witness to all that he has done. Share that with other people. Well, why? Why would I do that? Well, David is saying to Solomon, I want you to be blessed. I want you to be blessed, son. So obey the Lord. I don't want you to be like me. I want you to be better than me. Every father will say that. My son, Joseph, one time said that. He said, daddy, I want to be just like you. I said, no. You don't want to be just like me. Be better than me. I didn't raise my children to be less than me. I raised my children to be greater than me. That's what fathers do. I want my sons and my daughters to be better than I ever was. And so I put my life into that. That's what matters. You know, they grow older and it's more difficult, but we do our best to encourage them in the things of the Lord. And remember, they are following you as their greatest example. Again, using a son as an example, I walked outside. It had rained. I had torn out grass. I was receding. And because it rained, I hadn't put any seed down. It was just dirt in my backyard. And I walked out and I was walking across the yard to the back. When I heard the our back door, screen door close, and then I heard these grunting sounds. Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh. I heard that coming behind me and I turned around and I looked and it was my son Joseph who was maybe about six or seven years old at the time. Maybe less, probably less than that. And he was stretching long strides. And I stopped and I stopped and turned around and said, so what are you doing? And he said, I'm walking in your footsteps. And what had happened is I had left my imprint as I was walking and my son was matching my strides. So his little foot here and then he'd stretch and that's why he was going stretching, stretching, stretching. But when he said, I'm walking in your footsteps, the Spirit of the Lord said, be careful where you go because your son is following you every step of the way. What footsteps, what footsteps have you left for your sons? Where are they going? I have a picture of my wife and me. It caused my daughter to cry when I pointed it out. But it's a picture of my wife and me holding hands, walking. And it's just, it's us walking, you can see us walking away. And I wrote on it, walking to heaven. And it shows us leading. But I have a tribe following behind me. I have my children. I have my grandchildren. I have my children. And I want to lead them into the promises of God. Where are you leading your children? Where are you taking them? Where are you going and do you want them there too? Make of your mind, fellas. We're in a war. We're in a war. Make up your mind to fight. We may be Christians. But in the Lord Jesus Christ we are more than conquerors. We are warriors. Be aware of that. Be aware of that. Be aware of that. We don't have to be the biggest and the strongest and the toughest. We just need to be the best. Be the best man you can be. Be the best man for Jesus Christ. Be open with your faith. Don't back down. Don't quiet down. I don't care who tries to cancel me. I'm approved already by God. I don't need man. I don't need man. I don't care. If you're not right with God you cannot lead your children to the Lord. So if you're not right with God you need to get right with him today. This is your moment. That's why we have these men's things. So you can get right with Jesus Christ. So you can go home and act that your wife wished she married. You can be that man. Because God can transform you into a man that people won't even recognize. When God grabbed hold of me he not only grabbed me but he grabbed my dad. He grabbed my mom. He grabbed my brother. He grabbed my sisters because I was not willing to go to heaven without them. And you need to be the same way with your own family. Go to heaven without them. And if you're not right with God then today is the day. You need to humble yourself and you need to say God be merciful to me. I am a sinner. And I need your help. And I ask for your forgiveness. And guess what? God will welcome you in with open arms. That's why Jesus Christ came to set you free. Don't forget that.